Well this time we cannot lay the blame at the feet of Freedom Scientific.
This it a technology, maybe like auto racing which is just not amenable to
access by the blind. Access is to some extent vicarious or by proxy. Jaws
can't help us look at pictures or images when Web shopping and frequently
the text descriptions offered are inadequate. I was just shopping for a
winter jacket at Sears.ca. Of interest to me are things like good deep
pockets for my folded cane, length, does it cover my behind from those north
winds and things like that. I am offered descriptions like "stylish, retro
tailored, looks equally good on the ski slopes and in the urban
environment." While this is someone's idea of what I need to know to make a
decision it isn't my requirement.
The confusion rests with that a PDF document can be an image. If it was a
.GIF or a .MPG we would understand that it is a picture and wouldn't expect
to be able to read it wit our technology. Sighted people would only notice
the difference if they tried to edit the document, to them a picture of text
is about the same as digital representation of text characters. Sort of the
reverse of a nod being as good as a wink.
Adobe doesn't even get it right most of the time. I have often saved a .PDF
document as a text document using the selection in the FILE menu of the
Adobe Reader application to look at it in NotePad. Sometimes the lay-out is
columnar or otherwise wrapped and hard to follow in Adobe. The text document
though often isn't better, sometimes worse.
So, there are still areas where we don't and won't have direct access to the
things we want to do. Someone is in the passenger seat experiencing the ride
directly guiding, instructing, actively controlling while we experience the
activity indirectly, responding and reacting to the events and
circumstances. There are aspects of this technology, like most every
technology which we will be able to participate in fully and there will
always be aspects where we will not.
I guess it comes back to the words in that Cheryl Crow song "It's not having
what you want. It's wanting what you've got."
I would be much happier if the entire Adobe technology would disappear.
Where I work they have an imaging device for creating and sending fax's,
some bright a**holes are now using it to image documents, sending them to
their computers, then sending them as attachments to e-mails. One example is
someone who tears a page off of a calendar, marks checkmarks and comments as
to when they will be at which facility, scans, attaches and sends it around.
Now for a sighted person I suppose clicking on the attachment and looking at
this in an Adobe window isn't much. For me, I open the message, open the
attachments list, agree to open the file, wait for Adobe Reader to examine
it only to discover it is a "empty document" then close it all back to the
message. I suppose they also expect to print the page and stick it to the
wall. We have millions of dollars worth of technology which is as useless to
me in that application as the original paper they used to photocopy and drop
in my mail box.
On the other hand, most people still send a simple e-mail around with the
information which gives me much better access and information than ever I
had before, agenda, minutes, loads of stuff I never could keep and access at
my leisure.
So, while not independent in the driver's seat I can at least operate most
of the climate controls so to speak. For now Larry you will still have to be
content to have someone with sight interpret the image document for you.
With luck it is an image of text so there shouldn't be too much
interpretation if they read the words faithfully. Have you ever noticed how
some people can't seem to read beginning at the top of the page sequentially
to the bottom? People who seem to feel the need to even interpret meaning
that doesn't need interpretation! Even the human interface can be
frustrating and unreliable.
On my XP computer at work there is a Microsoft Imaging application on the
Desktop which will scan a paper with a scanner and it has an OCR option. I
haven't used it so I don't know how well it works, I use K1000 and it often
doesn't work very well either directly on the PDF or a scanned copy of the
printed document I suspect because the original image is a little dark or
light or otherwise less than ideal. If you have this application it might be
a cheap way of trying to get at the document.
Good luck and my sympathies align with yours. Just not the fault of Jaws is
all.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Stansifer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 5:47 AM
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] "Alert document is empty"
Dale,
It is extremely frustrating when the brain trust at fs seems to have more
interest in some kind of mindless auto forms mode or a gazillion different
ways to rip and remake music tracks. After all, Ted Henter's original
vision
for "JAWS was "Job Access with Speech."
With the professional version of JFW running near a grand per copy one
would
hope that the boys at FS would wake up and smell the demand.
TNX
Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 7:23 AM
To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] "Alert document is empty"
If you look at the document in Windows Explorer with View/Details selected
and it has a byte count of significantly more than 0 then you have the
file
in all probability. It is most likely a graphic, that is, a picture of
text.
What you are observing is that there is no text for NotePad or Adobe
Reader
to display.
If you have Kurzweil or OpenBook or some other OCR programme you might be
able to get them to open the document and scan it to recognize text. This
is
not usually all that satisfactory partly because the image may not be so
clear or well scanned and the software can't discriminate the text in it
all
that well either.
Sometimes you can print the file to a good printer then scan that into a
programme like K1000 or OpenBook and get reasonable intelligence that way.
You probably have the full document, just not in a form you can use.
Frustrating isn't it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Stansifer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 9:01 AM
Subject: [JAWS-Users] "Alert document is empty"
Hi folks,
I recently received a PDF document and when I attempted to open it I
received the following message: "Alert document is empty." Undaunted
by Jaws inability to recognize certain PDF formatting I proceeded
to open it in note pad as a TXT file and received a blank screen with
Jaws
simply sounding top and bottom alert.
Would it be safe to assume that because I receive no information using
either file format that the document is in fact empty and I need to have
the
document resent?
TNX
Larry
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