[gui-talk] Ray Kurzweil Teams with Baker & Taylor on NeweReader Software

[Steve Jacobson]

James,

The thing is, we would have most of the problem solved if we got 
publishers to use one system.  That is where I think you are glossing 
over a major point.  They don't even all use Office necessarily.  It 
sounds as though have given this a good deal of thought, but getting 
them to agree on using one word processor is far from simple.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Pepper" <b75205 at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Ray Kurzweil Teams with Baker & Taylor on 
NeweReader Software


Steve:
The Publisher's Weekly article says ““We take in books from different
publishers in a variety of formats and convert it to our own format,” 
said
Kurzweil.”



They are converting the books into a new format that is specific to 
their
reader.  So you have the same problem as before where publishers have to
rely on an outside source for their conversions of their files.  The
Publisher would rather control it all; they do not want something like
Kindle taking over their product! Of course Kurzweil will do a much 
better
job on accessibility than Kindle, but we need a fundamental solution to 
this
problem.



What we need is for publishers to be able to convert documents so that 
they
can sell them to everyone including the blind; one format for everyone. 
Since
they already make their content into PDF format to print, why not make 
PDF
format accessible to the blind as they make the document.



So I rebuilt a word processor to make PDF documents accessible to the 
blind
by just typing the content and adding pictures etc.  The basic concepts 
used
are universal and will work across programming languages and thus across
platforms and there is no language barrier.  My accessible PDFs work out 
of
the box in Adobe Reader and do not require any special settings or
accessibility settings.  You can if you want to, but they are not 
necessary
to run the files.  One size fits all.


The documents are accessible to JAWS, Window Eyes and text to speech
engines. Text to speech engines have enhanced features because of my 
format
so they are very effective in page navigation and reading content. For
instance I believe I can solve the problem of using Voiceover on the
IPhone for PDF files handling text so it will not act like an 8 track 
tape,
but be interactive.

But this is not just for PDF format, I believe if this was integrated 
into
Office it would open up those programs to the blind.  Also I understand 
why
their formats are not working for the blind and what I did to fix the
problems.

I made this using JAWS 8 to test the format, so it is backwards 
compatible
for those who cannot afford the new screen readers.  The content can be
enlarged and the text is clear and not pixilated.  The fonts are large 
and
can be scanned using OCR if necessary.  This works for forms and 
documents
with all of the content clearly read in the correct order even with text 
to
speech engines.

I created a ballot for the 2008 election to be tested where all you need 
to
have at the poling place is a PC and the form creates both a paper trail 
and
an electronic tally and it can be made in most languages.   Also I 
rebuilt
some Social Security Forms to show what can be done in English and 
Spanish
and I can lay out the LSAT to be accessible today!


So the result is bringing enhancement to an existing technology that 
most
publishers use today, just to print their books.  Therefore the solution 
is
not to create a new format but to enhance existing formats so that
publishers can sell their content to everyone.


I learned how to do this because when I got my sight back from tunnel 
vision
I knew the problems of accessibility first hand, and because I can see I 
am
able to look at the software used to create accessible documents
and identify what is going wrong, and so I fixed it!

James Pepper
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