Hi Mary, Your use-cases are very interesting and mirror mine. The reality is that sometimes having a PDF in continuous view mode and just letting voiceover read it isn't what people need. I frequently need to have Preview set to single page mode and VO, and this is not a gripe supposition or anything else, is broken in that mode. And before anyone nay-says that, Apple have confirmed and acknowledged it as the case in a response to my bug report.
The key to using a mac in a fast-moving, highly business oriented environment is to rely on workarounds. Yes, as I said, a lot can be done because of very diligent users who have come up with lots of very innovative ways to work around the limitations between voiceover and Mac software. I contend that the need for so many workarounds should be diminishing and it is not. cheers, Dónal On 22 Jul 2013, at 23:13, Mary Otten <motte...@gmail.com> wrote: > John, > Seems to me you didn't really address some of Chris's specific issues with > Mac as compared to his use of Jaws or NVDA with Windows. pdf on the Mac is a > joke compared with Windows; sorry, but cutting and pasting in to text edit > isn't my idea of reasonable access. And the fact that I can't read tables in > pdf documents is a serious drawback. I know there are work arounds involving > the use of Pages with tables and numbers, but again, cutting and pasting back > and forth just to do something that ought to be done within a single app is > not the same level of usability as you get with a good Windows screen reader. > If Apple fixes this issue with the next release of iWork, which ought to be > coming soon, then good for them. In the mean time, I don't see how you can > say Mac is just as good as Windows for folks who need to do a lot of table > reading and editing, or document changes tracking, which is working in MS > Word for Windows with screen reader but not with VO and Pages. > You made a statement that a lot of folks who criticize Apple accessibility as > compared with Windows don't have sufficient knowledge of Mac usage to make > such a statement. I would argue that the opposite is also true. I've seen > statements from people who admit to not having used Windows ever or to not > having used it in years, but they nonetheless feel justified in making > statements that are as exaggerated about Windows as the ones you rightly call > out re the Mac. > There are plenty of things I like about the MacMy other complaint about use > of the Mac, which isn't an Apple issue but does affect the usability of the > system is the problem producing braille. I understand that there is a Duxbury > product in the works for the Mac, although it will be interesting to see how > that's going to work, given the state of inaccessibilitry of MS Word and > uncertainty about whether Dux will be able to tightly integrate with the new > iWork, as it does in Windows with Word. I have a use case involving the > receipt of pdf documents that are both text and pictures. I have to integrate > these by running ocr on the image only document, then pasting that in between > sections of the text-based pdf that have been pasted in to Word. Then I > produce ahard copy braille document from that for use each week. I can't do > that at all on the Mac. It is easy with Windows. I admit that is a > specialized use case. But it does highlight some of the shortcomings that may > be encounter > ed by blind folks who want to produce hard copy braille and need to do so in > an efficient manner. One of the things I think that some folks minimize is > the difference between something that is accessible, at least in name, and > something that is efficiently usable. Some of this is learning curve, to be > sure. But some of it is just simple efficiency and/or ergonomics, e.g. the > business with the cutting and pasting of tables between Pages and Numbers. > > I really hope that Mavericks sees some VO improvements and especially that > the new iWork becomes as efficiently usable with VO as it is with JAWS or > even NVDA. My Windows machine is close to the end of its life, and I don't > want to buy another one, but given some of my use cases, I will need to do > that if some stuff isn't made more efficiently usable or accessible at all > with the Mac in the next several months. > Mary > Mary Otten > motte...@gmail.com > > > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> > > To reply to this post, please address your message to > mac-access@mac-access.net > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at > either the list's own dedicated web archive: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> > or at the public Mail Archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. > Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> > > As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that > the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and > worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security > strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something > unpredictable happen. > > Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by > visiting the list website at: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> Dr. Dónal Fitzpatrick, School of Computing, Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland Tel. +353-(0)1-700-8929 fax: +353-(0)1-700-5442 email: dfitzpat (at) computing.dcu.ie Email Disclaimer "This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for use by the addressee. Any unauthorised dissemination, distribution or copying of this message and any attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete the message. Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail may solely be the views of the author and cannot be relied upon as being those of Dublin City University. E-mail communications such as this cannot be guaranteed to be virus-free, timely, secure or error-free and Dublin City University does not accept liability for any such matters or their consequences. Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail." <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
