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  2. NVDA's built-in OCR Capabilities

Re: NVDA's built-in OCR Capabilities

Quentin Christensen
 

Hi Bhavya,

One of the main blockers to this is license-free access to a description engine.  I don't believe we're against including such functionality, but all of the ones I know of are either paid, or require a license or another product - either or both of which might be possible, but would require planning in how to implement and likely agreements with those providers.

Those other screenreaders you cite already have the user individually logging in to an account in order to use them, which doesn't happen with NVDA.

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 2:42 PM Bhavya shah <bhavya.shah125@...> wrote:
Dear all,

I don't mean to detract from the main subject of the thread, but is
there an add-on or future plans for core for NVDA to offer image
descriptions? VoiceOver, JAWS, and I believe Talkback all do, and I'd
say that offering a description of on-screen content such as a graphic
is within the scope of a screen reader. I know there was an add-on
called Online Image Describer at one point which, last I recall, was
not updated for compatibility.

Thanks.

On 9/12/22, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 09:20 AM, Steve Nutt wrote:
>
>>
>> I would posit that OCR scanning is not really the function of a screen
>> reader, beyond scanning the current screen, so I think that NVDA is right
>> to not build this in natively.
>
> -
> And that's precisely what I think as well.
>
> There seems to be this idea, among some, that a screen reader itself is
> supposed to be this Swiss Army Knife type tool that literally does anything
> and everything that any given user thinks it should be able to do.  I
> don't.  Screen readers exist to allow blind or visually-impaired users to
> access the same software that those of us who can see do use to do all sorts
> of things.
>
> My multi-function is what I use to scan material (with OCR processing as
> part of the initial scan, and that's been common for years now) and the
> scanner software is what handles all of that.  If the scanning software is
> accessible, then the problem is already solved.  If it's not, then the issue
> lies with the scanning software, not the screen reader.
>
> Having a "quick and dirty" ability to OCR what's on a screen is one thing.
> Having the capability to act as substitute scanning software for all
> conditions is entirely another.
> --
>
> Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044
>
> It is well to open one's mind but only as a preliminary to closing it . . .
> for the supreme act of judgment and selection.
>
> ~ Irving Babbitt
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Kind Regards,
Bhavya Shah
B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Science | Stanford '24
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavyashah125/







--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager
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