[Athen] Question re Mac and voice recognition

[Karlen Communications]

Norm:

In terms of using VoiceOver as the Mac screen reader, there are some limits
you need to know about. First, there are some of the settings and dialogs on
the Leopard OS that won't be read or won't be completely read to
you/end-user. Second, there are no "robust" office suites like there are in
the Windows environment. Open Office latest version will let you use their
word processor and some of the spreadsheet application with VoiceOver but
Microsoft Office for Mac and iWorks are not accessible. First character
navigation will only work on some of the file and icon items in drives and
folders. Although VoiceOver will work with Safari, there are web sites that
are not designed to be accessible when using a Mac. These might include
banking and government sites. A friend of mine found this to be true even
for those not using adaptive technology on a Mac.

The mail program on the Mac seems pretty accessible and some web sites are
usable but if you want to do anything productive in terms of business or
academic writing, you will need Windows and a Windows Screen reader plus
Microsoft Office.

I have a MacBook Air and am very limited in terms of what I can do and what
I can access related to word processing/document formatting, spreadsheet and
presentation applications. I don't know of any accessible presentation
software for the Mac.

For voice recognition there is MacSpeech http://www.macspeech.com/ and You
Tube has a video on how to use it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbjG3gQxv-8
as well as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX1sS6lsQrc

Of course Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Mac
http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/products/macintosh.asp 

There is iListen: http://hubpages.com/hub/ilisten

I haven't used any voice recognition with my Mac yet and don't know how it
would integrate with VoiceOver.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers, Karen


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Prof Norm Coombs
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 1:37 PM
To: athen-athenpro.org
Subject: [Athen] Question re Mac and voice recognition

I have an acquaintance whose wife recently became blind.  They have a 
recent Mac computer.  I told him he should check as it will have screen 
reader technology that came with it.

However, the real question relates to the fact that his wife has no touch 
typing and hopes to use voice recognition.  What voice recognition programs 
are available for the Mac and which one might be the best?

Norm



  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Norman Coombs norm.coombs at gmail.com
CEO EASI Equal Access to Software and Information
phone (949) 855-4852 (NOTE pacific time zone)
****READ ABOUT THE DICK BANKS MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP:
http://easi.cc/scholarship.htm



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