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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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-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Nusbaum,
Christopher
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 1:33 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Acrobat Read Out Loud mistakenly reads letter as Roman
Numeral

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

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