[Athen] Are Accessible Multilingual/Multi-directional EPUBs supported today?

[Patrick Burke]

Hi Brian,

I haven't experimented with multilingual files in 
Voice Dream, but that may be worth a try, esp if 
voice quality is an issue. There are 4 Arabic samples to choose from.:

http://www.voicedream.com/features/voices/

Perhaps contact Winston Chen with this question (Twitter: @VoiceDreamApp )

Patrick

At 10:43 AM 9/29/2014, Brian Richwine wrote:

>Hi,

>

>Â  Does anyone have knowledge of an accessible 

>EPUB reader on iOS/VoiceOver (or any platform 

>for that matter) that supports multilingual 

>access, including a mix of directional 

>languages? If it could work on iOS, I suppose 

>we'd support any other file format that would be 

>accessible and could be converted from a Word document.

>

>Â We have a student that is blind, a native 

>Arabic speaker, and does not want to use desktop 

>screen-reading software since his iPhone natively supports Arabic TTS.

>

>Â We've been converting his materials by editing 

>in Word documents, and then converting them to 

>the EPUB format. The student opens the materials in iBooks on his phone.

>

>Â This has been going splendidly for books that 

>are in all one language. However, the student is 

>studying languages and many of the materials he 

>needs make extensive use of two or more languages.Â

>

>Â  We've checked the underlying HTML, metadata 

>files, etc. in the EPUBs we are creating. They 

>seem to have the proper language markup around 

>the changes (span elements with lang attributes 

>as expected). However, none of the EPUB readers 

>(accessible and with TTS) for iOS are handling the language changes.

>

>Â  It appears that for iBooks, at least, that 

>this is currently by design. The iBooks Asset 

>Guide speaks of "The language of your book" (as 

>in singular language, pg. 19 of the iBooks Asset Guide 5.1 R2).

>

>Â  To complicate it, many of the texts switch 

>between left-to-right languages and 

>right-to-left languages. Often many times in a given line.

>

>Thanks!

>Â  Brian Richwine

>

>Â

>

>Manager, UITS Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers

>

>Indiana University – Bloomington / Indianapoolis

>

><http://iuadapts.iu.edu/>http://iuadapts.iu.edu

>

>(812) 856-2757 [Direct Line]

>

>(812) 856-4112 [Office Number]

>

><mailto:brichwin at iu.edu>brichwin at iu.edu



--
Patrick J. Burke

Coordinator
UCLA Disabilities &
Computing Program

Phone: 310 206-6004
E-mail: burke at ucla.edu
Location: 4909 Math Science


Department Contact: dcp at oit.ucla.edu