We’ve all needed to read a PDF file at one time or another, but getting our screen reader to cooperate is not always possible. There is a way to translate PDF files to something your screen reader can handle.
Follow these steps to translate your PDF file in to an HTML or text file.
- Place your reading cursor on the link that would download, or open the PDF file.
- Right click the link, or hit the “Applications” key. This key is located just to the left of the right-hand control key.
- Choose “properties” from the list.
- At the bottom of the resulting page, you should find the URL of the PDF file. This should look something like http://www.aph.org/test.pdf
- Copy the entire URL to the clipboard.
- Go to the following page: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html Click here to go to the Adobe Online Conversion page
- Look for the line “Enter a URL to an Adobe PDF document below”:
- You will find an edit box a few lines down the screen.
- Paste the URL of your PDF file in to the box.
- Choose either HTML or Text by checking the appropriate option.
- Take a few minutes to fill in the information as to why you are using this online conversion utility, who knows, they may work even harder to make PDF files easier to use.
- Click the “Get this Adobe PDF Document” button.
Your document should come up in a new window. If you want to save the document to your hard drive, choose “Save as” from the “File” menu and remember to save as HTML if that was your choice of translation.
Click this link to check out Adobe’s blog on accessibility: http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility.
