WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Acrobat Read Out Loud mistakenly reads letter as Roman Numeral

for

From: Nusbaum, Christopher
Date: Jul 17, 2014 11:32AM


Jordan:

I wouldn't worry about it. Neither I nor anyone I know uses Read Out Loud for the very reason that it is *not* a viable screen reader. If someone does happen to read your PDF using Read Out Loud and there is a question, they could navigate character by character to clarify.

Chris

Christopher A. (Chris) Nusbaum, Intern
Technology Services Department
Assistive Technology Program
Carroll County Public Schools
Phone: (410) 751-3428
Cell: (443) 547-2409
Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jordan Wilson
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 1:02 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Acrobat Read Out Loud mistakenly reads letter as Roman Numeral

Normally when we see this topic its the opposite, a writer is trying to get letters to be read as Roman Numerals instead of letters. VII instead of Seven.

I'm running into the opposite - Acrobat's Read Out Loud mistakenly reads my letter as a Roman Numeral

If you put the text: "Medicare Part D" into a PDF and let Acrobat read it aloud using its built in Read Out Loud feature, the D is pronounced '500'
as if it was the Roman Numeral D.

Its important to note that if you view the same PDF in NVDA or JAWS it is read correctly as D. So the issue here is (probably) only with Acrobat's Read Out Loud functionality.

My question is how important is this? Can I assume that users will be using a viable screenreader? Is there anything I can do about it?

_

Jordan Wilson

<EMAIL REMOVED>
Associate Director, Creative Technology