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Accessible text gives you options for reading. It might be an accommodation that is needed to use other assistive technology tools, like text-to-speech.
Accessible text gives you options for reading. It might be an accommodation that is needed to use other assistive technology tools, like text-to-speech.
Traditional text is printed on paper. Accessible text comes in a variety of formats, including digital text, audio books, large print and Braille. You can learn more about accessible educational materials at http://aem.cast.org/
Digital text is the most useful because you can:
- Read it out loud with text-to-speech software features.
- Enlarge it with zoom features.
- Turn or scroll pages with buttons
- Search it for key words
- Look up words in a digital dictionary
- Highlight and extract phrases and sentences
Why is digital text an accommodation?
Why is digital text an accommodation?
Online texts (websites and online textbooks) are digital. But digital versions of traditional print materials are not always available to everyone. And some online textbooks are not accessible. So, digital text sometimes needs to be provided as an accommodation.
How to get digital text as an accommodation
How to get digital text as an accommodation
- Do it yourself! Use a scanning + OCR app on your smartphone to create a digital version of a short item.
- Speechify (multiple devices)
- PrizmoGo app for iOS devices
- Text Fairy for Android devices
- CamScanner for Android and iOS devices
- Office Lens for Android, iOS or Windows devices
- If you have trouble getting a good image, you might need a tool to hold your phone or tablet. Make your own or buy a ScanJig.
- Ask your teacher to scan paper worksheets or share a digital version with you. See copier directions below.
- Use Bookshare.org to get novels and textbooks (ask your case manager about eligibility requirements).
- The school district has an institutional membership to get digital texts for eligible students.
- Eligible students can get an individual membership for free through the school district or on their own (proof of eligibility is required).
- E-Reader apps that can handle Bookshare files are needed to access Bookshare books
- Read2Go ($20)
- Voice Dream Reader ($15)
- Dolphin Easy Reader (free)
- E-Reader apps that can handle Bookshare files are needed to access Bookshare books
What is optical character recognition (OCR)?
What is optical character recognition (OCR)?
Optical character recognition (OCR) is a software feature that turns an image with text into digital text.
- District copiers have OCR capability when scanning a document into a PDF but it has to be activated first. See steps below.
- The scanning apps listed above have OCR features
- Adobe Acrobat (paid version, not the free Reader version) has OCR capabilities
- Snapverter is compatible with Google Drive
How to create accessible PDFs on a Canon copy machine
How to create accessible PDFs on a Canon copy machine
Step 1: Choose "Scan and Send"
Step 2: Choose PDF options
Step 3: Choose "Set Details"
Step 4: Activate "OCR (Text Searchable)" option; OK
Step 5: Choose "Send to Myself"
Step 6:
Check your email. The PDF will arrive as an attachment.
Save it to your Google Drive to use it with Read & Write for Google Chrome.
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