since were heading out in left field here I'll contact you off list, smile
elf
. Moderator, Blind Access Help.
. Owner: Alacorn Computer Enterprises
"own the might and majesty of an alacorn"
www.alacorncomputer.com
. proprietor: Inthane's Grab Bag
for blind computer users and Programmers!
http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nancy Feldman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] PDF Files
Hi Elf,
I play numerous games, and often pick up indie games. In truth, most
indie
games are accessible, but when they're not, most publishers are willing to
work with me to get copies in alternative formats.
So, the primary offenders are:
Just about everything from White Wolf. I'd love to read their books, new
and
old, but PDF conversions are absolutely, positively terrible. One
example,
Promethean, has a whole chapter that JAWS and other PDF interpreters (like
the one on the Braille Sense) cannot see at all. Most books, like the
Exalted series, jumble everything together, or don't read the text in a
logical flow.
Dresden Files: This is a small press game. They did some cool layout
stuff, with numerous comments interspersed throughout the text that are
meant to provide levity and insight, but which simply confuse JAWS and
other
PDF processes.
Amaranthine: Another small press book. This author didn't respond, and
the
text is simply disorganized, with the thread of the text being lost at
least
once per page.
Traveller: The tables are not presented logically, and Traveller has tons
and tons of tables.
Pathfinder: Mostly just text being presented out of order.
Can you help with any of these?
I believe in all cases Acrobat Reader says that these documents are
untagged. I've been told that tagging is a time-consuming, tedious
process.
Nancy
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of inthane
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 2:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] PDF Files
being an avid gamer myself, may I ask what system your attempting to find
useable .pdf books of?
I have translations of several systems here, and have openbook which many
times does a fair job of translating them to text.
elf
. Moderator, Blind Access Help.
. Owner: Alacorn Computer Enterprises
"own the might and majesty of an alacorn"
www.alacorncomputer.com
. proprietor: Inthane's Grab Bag
for blind computer users and Programmers!
http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nancy Feldman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 4:46 AM
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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