Comparison of Different Document Types for Doing Proportional Reading with VoiceOver

 


  1. 1. Online HTML Document with Mac computer


Online documents read directly online with VoiceOver have a number of problems:

  1. 1.Automatic reading does not go from page to page if the “Reader” is used. Note. Manual progression will do this.

  2. 2.The word “clickable” is heard at the end of each paragraph, if you are using the “Reader” function of the Safaris browser and progressing manually.

  3. 3.Unless you use specially prepared text, you can not pause interactively after each sentence for as long as you want; or, easily repeat any sentence as often as you want, as text is presented a paragraph at a time.

The Solution is to read specially prepared HTML articles online, or offline, or with WiFi, using your browser. You can save any web article as a separate article for offline reading. Offline documents are easy to format or enlarge into large type, and have no problem with the word “clickable” at the end of each paragraph, or moving from page to page automatically. Alternatively, you can read some articles (just a few) with the “read it later” service. These can be read online, or offline, in text mode (rather than web page) and with large font, and with VoiceOver, and no “clickable” problem. Overall, the best approach is to get web articles into “Reader” and then copy the contents into an HTML document, which you read offline.


2. Online HTML Document with IOS Device:


    None of the above problems, 1-3, occur. Easily read Safaris and “Reader” articles online in small type by paragraph.


However, other problems do occur. Selection of text is often too big for the screen, and frequently can not be seen as it is read out loud, especially with larger type. Text has to be too small for easy reading in order to be seen in the normal selection, which is a whole paragraph. Text large enough to be read easily often overruns page and can not be seen as it is heard.


Also, you can not pause after each sentence for as long as you want; or, easily repeat any sentence as often as you want.


Most problematic is the lack of a Find function and the automatic return to the top of the article whenever VoiceOver is started. This makes it very difficult to locate a specific place in the text.


The Solution for all these problems is to read articles in HTML offline, and which have been specially formatted for reading by sentence. Use Dropbox or e-mail attachments. Note. You can not transport HTML files over the iCloud. Text can now be large, and presented by sentence, and it will not override the page. The vertical scroll bar is available to use before you start VoiceOver. VoiceOver will not restart at the beginning of the article.


3. iBooks (only on iOS Devices)


Normally read by one Screen at a time.


Easy to read by word or line (choose with Rotor and select within paragraph with down arrow). Can not read by sentence or paragraph.


Slows down with large file or notes and bookmarks


4. Reader Version of Safaris


The Reader version of Internet articles cuts out all the junk advertising and makes the text much bigger and more like a printed page. This is wonderful to read if you are not using VoiceOver. It is also ideal to select, copy and paste into a word processor to repaginate for Proportional Reading.


5. Other Readers


Many other readers fail completely to enable voice and text reading.

None of these readers allow reading long articles sentence by sentence.


6.Solution


The best reader by far is your existing browser (Safari), reading the text as an HTML document specially paginated.


7. Best Voice


Alex






© Proportional Reading, 2012