nancy,
it seems to me that the limitations you mention are due in large part to
the free Adobe Reader's limitations. there is an Adobe Professional
Edition, which (I believe) costs about $300, that would apparently
convert those pdf's properly. Another option, if you have it, is to use
OCR software to convert the pdf's and image pdf's into documents that
will read more coherently. the other day, I came across a heavily tabled
pdf, which read fine on the internet but which - when downloaded, JAWS12
and the free Adobe Reader had difficulty with. it reads properly when
converted by Kurzweil 1000, OCR,and would read well thus if converted by
Open Book, etc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nancy Feldman" <nancy_feld...@comcast.net>
To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:46 PM
Subject: [JAWS-Users] PDF Files
Good Morning,
I am at my wit's end with PDF files, so I thought I'd inquire for help
here.
If there's a better forum for this, or we should be discussing it off
list,
I'd be happy to do that.
I've used JAWS to read basic PDF files, ones with practically no
formatting.
For instance, a novel in PDF format tends to read pretty well.
But I purchase a lot of PDF documents from www.drivethrurpg.com, and
most of
them aren't read very well by JAWS. I've seen many of the following
errors.
No spaces between words
On two-column pages, the columns being smashed together and read as
one
nonsensical block of text
With tables, the left hand column being presented first, and then the
right
hand column, not side by side, but all the left hand column entries
first,
and then the right.
Whole sections of books that JAWS cannot see at all, even though I am
assured there is text there
One pair of files where the author used lots of notes in the text and
JAWS
had no idea where to put them, so it just reads them mixed up with the
rest
of the text.
Because of all of these difficulties, I've concluded that I may need
new
strategies for dealing with PDF files. Perhaps I'm doing something
wrong?
What are the optimal settings to use when opening a PDF file? Is
there
anything I can do to improve the conversion of PDF documents to text?
I
seem to recall that there's a place that we can Email PDF documents
to, and
it'll convert them. Is it any good? The problem with that approach is
most
of these documents are larger than 10 MB, which I believe exceeds the
largest Email attachment I can send.
I welcome all suggestions and insights. Failing that, I will contact
the
publishers and ask if I can get copies of the documents I've purchased
in an
alternate electronic format. It's just very frustrating to know that
the
information is there and available, but still inaccessible to me.
Before I
contact the publishers, though, I want to make certain that I'm not
doing
anything wrong.
Many thanks.
Nancy
I've tried saving files to text, and the
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