more on a problematic pdf file
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Mary Otten
Hi all,
A while back, I posted about a problem pdf file. The provider of said file was nice enough to strip it of images. The file reads sort of ok on my phone, but I can't access links, of which it has a lot. On my pc with NVDA, having tried both Microsoft sapi5 voices and also Windows one core voices, it reads with all these capital letter a tossed in making the reading impossible. When I asked my sighted spouse, he reported that this capital A is not present in the actual text. My friend who uses JAWS and has Adobe Pro also sees the A's, but they are not visible to a sighted person. I'd be happy to send this file to anybody who might be able to help get to the bottom of why this A problem exists and what, if anything can I do to get rid of the problem, so that I can actually use this file? It seems they did fix the reading order issues, although I certainly haven't looked systematically through the whole file to be sure of that. Any help out there? At this point, I don't know what to tell the provider, since the problem does not show up if you're not using a screen reader. Mary |
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Mary,
If you want to send it to me, I'll take a look. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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Dennis Clark
Hello Mary,
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Have you tried pulling the PDF file into Kurzweil? Even if this does solve the capital letter inserts it probably won't keep the links in the file operational. All the best, Dennis On 1/23/2023 9:42 AM, Mary Otten wrote:
Hi all, |
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Gene
Perhaps someone will know or refer you to someplace to get help.
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Meantime, I will OCR the article for you if you want to try to have it in more readable form perhaps more quickly. But I would think links will not function as links even if you can read the link text so you may not want to pursue that means of reading the file more quickly. Gene On 1/23/2023 11:42 AM, Mary Otten wrote:
Hi all, |
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Mary Otten
I didn't try Kurzweil, because I want to keep the links. I sent that file to Brian, and he's having issues too; there is something funky with this file.
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On 1/23/2023 9:51 AM, Dennis Clark wrote:
Hello Mary, |
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 02:05 PM, Mary Otten wrote:
there is something funky with this file.- After playing all kinds of tricks, I'd say there is something profoundly funky with this file. I've never experienced anything like it as far as opening in Word, and saving the result as plain text, as diagnostic steps. Even trying to read it in Word results in an experience like I've never had before with any Word file (native or converted from PDF). -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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jamie coady
Hi sort of on this topic and sort off but what would people suggest to read pdf files that would be accessible with NVDA?
mANY THANKS JAMIE
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Gene
Sent: 23 January 2023 18:10 To: chat@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [chat] more on a problematic pdf file
Perhaps someone will know or refer you to someplace to get help.
Meantime, I will OCR the article for you if you want to try to have it in more readable form perhaps more quickly. But I would think links will not function as links even if you can read the link text so you may not want to pursue that means of reading the file more quickly.
Gene
On 1/23/2023 11:42 AM, Mary Otten wrote: > Hi all, > > > A while back, I posted about a problem pdf file. The provider of said > file was nice enough to strip it of images. The file reads sort of ok > on my phone, but I can't access links, of which it has a lot. On my pc > with NVDA, having tried both Microsoft sapi5 voices and also Windows > one core voices, it reads with all these capital letter a tossed in > making the reading impossible. When I asked my sighted spouse, he > reported that this capital A is not present in the actual text. My > friend who uses JAWS and has Adobe Pro also sees the A's, but they are > not visible to a sighted person. I'd be happy to send this file to > anybody who might be able to help get to the bottom of why this A > problem exists and what, if anything can I do to get rid of the > problem, so that I can actually use this file? It seems they did fix > the reading order issues, although I certainly haven't looked > systematically through the whole file to be sure of that. > > > Any help out there? At this point, I don't know what to tell the > provider, since the problem does not show up if you're not using a > screen reader. > > > Mary > > > > > > > > .
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JM Casey
Adobe Reader would be the obvious one. Then ther’es chrome,e dge, firefox and other browser too. Microsoft Word. Or just convert them into a format that you like better using any of a number of programmes.
From: chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of jamie coady
Sent: January 23, 2023 3:12 PM To: chat@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [chat] more on a problematic pdf file
Hi sort of on this topic and sort off but what would people suggest to read pdf files that would be accessible with NVDA?
mANY THANKS JAMIE
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Gene
Perhaps someone will know or refer you to someplace to get help.
Meantime, I will OCR the article for you if you want to try to have it in more readable form perhaps more quickly. But I would think links will not function as links even if you can read the link text so you may not want to pursue that means of reading the file more quickly.
Gene
On 1/23/2023 11:42 AM, Mary Otten wrote: > Hi all, > > > A while back, I posted about a problem pdf file. The provider of said > file was nice enough to strip it of images. The file reads sort of ok > on my phone, but I can't access links, of which it has a lot. On my pc > with NVDA, having tried both Microsoft sapi5 voices and also Windows > one core voices, it reads with all these capital letter a tossed in > making the reading impossible. When I asked my sighted spouse, he > reported that this capital A is not present in the actual text. My > friend who uses JAWS and has Adobe Pro also sees the A's, but they are > not visible to a sighted person. I'd be happy to send this file to > anybody who might be able to help get to the bottom of why this A > problem exists and what, if anything can I do to get rid of the > problem, so that I can actually use this file? It seems they did fix > the reading order issues, although I certainly haven't looked > systematically through the whole file to be sure of that. > > > Any help out there? At this point, I don't know what to tell the > provider, since the problem does not show up if you're not using a > screen reader. > > > Mary > > > > > > > > .
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Hmmm well the easiest way is to ask the author of the pdf for the original file used to create it.
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I had some visual epub books that I got from somewhere. I was able to talk to the authors directly to get the unencripted word file and I was able to show my recipt. I was told not to share the file and given it. You do not write in pdf generally. So the file that was used to run it should be about and you should just ask for it. On 24/01/2023 6:42 am, Mary Otten wrote:
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 06:23 PM, Shaun Everiss wrote:
You do not write in pdf generally.- If you are someone who works in publishing, you almost certainly do. PDF came into being as a professional publishing file format. That's one of the reasons that PDFs have come to dominate over the years. I seldom find anything in other than PDF when searching for almost any kind of documentation, and most of it has been created, natively, as a PDF from the get-go. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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Gene
Edge is good for reading PDF files that are straight text without
tables and don't have problems being decolumnized. I don't read
many PDF files but I use Edge for straight files because it opens
them so much faster than Adobe if the file is large and if I have
Adobe set to open the entire file. Edge opens even large files
quickly and it remembers where you left off.
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I don't know how many programs work with screen-readers to render tables well but Adobe does. Edge doesn't work with screen-readers at all to render tables in a suitable manner. For PDF files that have columns that don't decolumnize well, resulting in misplaced text, OCR often improves that problem. I haven't read a lot of PDF files, as I said, but in my very limited experience, OCR appears to often not solve the problem but to greatly improve it. Gene On 1/23/2023 2:11 PM, jamie coady
wrote:
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Gene
Firefox doesn't work well with PDF files. It appears to only open a
small amount of a file. Perhaps it opens more or the next segment
as you move down, I didn't play with it enough to figure out how you
read a file that is more than short, it wasn't worth it when Edge
works so well.
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Gene On 1/23/2023 2:19 PM, JM Casey wrote:
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Don Robinson
Found this on an Acrobat Help Group. Does it apply here?
“When you see scrambled text, dots, odd characters, or white blocks that look like tofu, it means that the PDF doesn't have the original fonts embedded. Acrobat tries to substitute with a font on your computer system, but when it can't find a valid substitute, it shows "scrambled" text for some or all of the text”
Don
From: chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: Monday, 23 January 2023 3:38 pm To: chat@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [chat] more on a problematic pdf file
On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 06:23 PM, Shaun Everiss wrote:
- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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Hi Mary,
What program are you using to read the pdf file? Can you try opening the file in Microsoft word? Pranav |
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 06:51 PM, Don Robinson wrote:
Found this on an Acrobat Help Group. Does it apply here?- No, not in this case. The file looks perfectly normal if you're sighted and were to read it. There's something really, really wonky with the file. If you open it in Word, then save it as plain text, you get only two pages of 42 of text. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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Mary Otten
Hi Pranav,
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I was using Acrobat reader DC. On my iPhone with whatever there default reader is when you tap an attachment from the mail app, the file doesn't exhibit the fantom letters and run together text, but moving around isn't so great, In Voice Dream Reader on the phone, the only navigation option available is paragraph. And again, no links can be seen or dealt with. The links are seen in the pdf in Acrobat DC, but there all junked up with those random letters A. So I think I'm stuck. Brian tried my file, tried opening in Word, no go for any help. Its a really weird file. I wrote the provider asking how it was written, the original file, that is. I haven't a clue if they'll be willing to try anything else. Mary On 1/23/2023 4:09 PM, Pranav Lal wrote:
Hi Mary, |
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Don Robinson
I have used PDF-XChange Editor Plus with NVDA without too many problems. But each user has their own preferences so it may not be the best for everyone. I believe they have a free version you can try.
Don |
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Mary Otten
I think Brian has that app and mentioned in a private msg to me that he had tried it as well as Word, but if I misunderstood that, then I can look for this app and see what happens. I'd sure like to know how they managed to provide something that's fine for the sighted but really screwed up if you use a pc and a screen reader.
mary
On 1/23/2023 4:34 PM, Don Robinson
wrote:
I have used PDF-XChange Editor Plus with NVDA without too many problems. But each user has their own preferences so it may not be the best for everyone. I believe they have a free version you can try. |
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Mary,
What I use is from the same company, Tracker Software, but it's PDF-XChange Viewer. It is a predecessor to PDF-XChange Editor that has (for me) a simpler and more pleasant interface. I figured out very early on that PDF-XChange Viewer is nowhere near to accessible on the whole. I still recommend it for OCR, as that has always been accessible and it works spectacularly well. The same thing is probably available in the free version of PDF-XChange Editor, but I'm not sure. They have a language pack that includes something like 20 languages, and the software ships (or shipped) as is with English, German, French, and Spanish OCR built in. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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Don Robinson
Does this sound like the same problem? Not clear if solution worked or not. https://www.freelists.org/post/jfw/Jaws-shows-garbage-in-PDF-from-bank,9.
Don
From: chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Mary Otten
Sent: Monday, 23 January 2023 4:52 pm To: chat@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [chat] more on a problematic pdf file
I think Brian has that app and mentioned in a private msg to me that he had tried it as well as Word, but if I misunderstood that, then I can look for this app and see what happens. I'd sure like to know how they managed to provide something that's fine for the sighted but really screwed up if you use a pc and a screen reader.
mary
On 1/23/2023 4:34 PM, Don Robinson wrote:
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