HelperBird

HelperBird is a Chrome Extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/helperbird-accessibility/ahmapmilbkfamljbpgphfndeemhnajme/related) that has a lot of accessibility features but is full of many other features to aid in reading online.

• You can find a whole set of video tutorials about each feature on their Youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNh_PTZF-kqbUIXQUWboBowDdyYmlgl2L)

• Here is a partial list of the features you will find in HelperBird but you can find the full list and some other resources on their site: https://www.helperbird.com/

  • Annotate any website - take notes and comments on any site and have them saved for every time you visit that site.

  • Dyslexia Support - use specialized web fonts for dyslexia and other reading issues. Use OpenDyslexic, Arial, Comic Sans and also change the size of the font on the page. Use the Dyslexia Ruler to highlight one row of text at a time.

  • Clutter-free web page - You can easily remove ads and distractions from a page to better focus on the text and images.

  • Text to speech - Highlight text and have it read out loud to you.

  • Immersive Reader - Microsoft’s Immersive Reader incorporates many reading assistance features such as text size adjustment, space increasing, font changes, color themes, grammar information such as syllables and parts of speech, line focus, picture dictionary, and even translation.

  • Other useful features:

    • Google Docs Toolbar - One current issue is that the toolbar being active will hide your view of tabs in a Google Sheet. Pause the extension to view your tabs.

    • Dyslexia Ruler - Add a highlight row to the text to help focus the reader and aid the reader in distinguishing the text they are reading.

    • Blocklist - Add sites to the list for which you do not want HelperBird to be active.

    • Overlays - Add an overlay to the whole screen with the color of your choice.

    • Color Blindness - Emphasize links or change the text color in order for those with a form of color blindness to make it easier to identify links or read the text.

    • Dictionary - Quick access to meaning, synonyms, antonyms, and similar words.

    • Translation - Translate words or segments of text using Google Translate.

    • Dictation - voice to text

    • Notes - Take notes on a webpage, notes are saved so you can access them whenever you are on that webpage.

    • Reduce Cognitive Load - uses a color gradient mode on the text to help aid in reading.

    • Page and text magnifier - Increase the zoom view of the page or increase the font size of the text.

    • High Contrast - Invert the colors to enable improved viewing depending on individual needs.

    • Optical Character Recognition - can pull text off of an image or pdf to be used in the editor for copying or using the text to speech