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OpenBook


Model: OpenBook 5.0 (http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_open.asp)
Manufacturer: Freedom Scientific (http://www.freedomscientific.com)
Price: $995
For: Job seekers with low-vision, blindness, or reading disabilities such as dyslexia
To Access: Printed information

Description:

OpenBook uses a computer, scanner, "optical character recognition" (OCR) software, and computer-synthesized speech to read printed materials out loud. Printed materials are first scanned, then converted to computer-readable text, and read using OpenBook's built-in screen reader. OpenBook also offers a variety of size, color, font, and letter spacing options to assist users with low vision.

OpenBook will successfully read most clear, simply-formatted documents. It will have difficulties with blurred text, complex multi-column layouts, and figures, charts, or graphs. It cannot read handwriting. The scanning and conversion process can be tedious for long documents.

Installation Notes:

OpenBook should be used with the scanner and headphones.

Operation:

The program is operated using keyboard commands: Numpad Insert or Spacebar will start scanning, Numpad Enter will start reading, Up and Down Arrows will read a line at a time, and Ctrl will temporarily silence speech. For more keyboard commands, see:

Low Vision Menu

Screen shot of the OpenBook Low Vision Menu shown with large white text on a black background

OpenBook's low vision features may be activated by opening the Low Vision menu and selecting Size, Colors, Fonts, or Spacing. The Low Vision toolbar will open in the lower portion of the OpenBook window. Four large buttons will allow you to easily cycle through various settings for text size, text and background color, font, and letter spacing, respectively. The Customize button or menu option enables even finer control over these settings.

Exact View

OpenBook normally operates in "Text View" mode, in which the text of scanned documents is shown re-formatted and without images. Alternatively, OpenBook can operate in "Exact View" mode, where an exact image of the scanned document is shown; OpenBook will even do its best to highlight words in Exact View as they are read:


Screen shot of the OpenBook Exact View showing a sample page with formatting and graphics retained.


To enable Exact View, you must first open the Settings menu, select Scanning Settings and check Keep Exact View. Subsequently scanned documents can then be viewed in Exact View by selecting Show Exact View from the View manu or pressing Ctrl + Shift + V.

Note that files saved with Exact View information will be substantially larger than comparable text-only files.

Questions