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

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jul 17, 2014 12:28PM

I know Read Out Loud is not a true screen reader, but from my work with
seniors, I've learned that they're a large user group. Social workers,
senior center staff, and others who work with seniors teach them how to turn
on ROL when they hit a PDF on a website or as an attachment.

I've also met folks who have just recently started to lose their sight or
who have strabismus (crossed eyes) who use it because it gets the job done
for them, and it's free.

What we need are better solutions to address these little problems (D
pronounced as a roman numeral).

One that's been discussed before is a tag we creators can add at the
character-level to instruct how to pronounce text (like acronyms and in this
sample "D").

The other is a more "robust" Read Out Loud from Adobe.
I think it was included in Reader and Acrobat because without it, the
software might not have passed the US federal government's requirement that
the software be accessible for AT users. If that's the case, it's just
enough to only pass the requirement, but not worth much as it stands.
Possibly Adobe can be encouraged to beef it up and make it a more useful
tool for those who don't need a full-featured screen reader.

-Bevi Chagnon

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