Recently, I had the honor of co-hosting a webinar with John Brandt, Coordinator of Maine Cite on how turn PDF files into Accessible Educational Materials. Teachers at all levels make frequent use of digital materials including documents saved in Portable Document Format (PDF). Unfortunately, many of these materials are not Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) and are inaccessible to learners with disabilities, or learners that prefer to use technology to access the PDF (i.e. use highlighting, annotations, speech to text, text to speech).
John covered a lot of the technical aspects of how to make PDF’s accessible from creation, and I focused on what happens when your PDF is not accessible, which happens all too often with PDF’s.
Click here to access the webinar archive and training materials, including now to check if your PDF is accessible. Below are some of the resources I shared on the webinar. I hope they are helpful as you navigate Accessible Educational Materials in all formats!
PDF APPS AND EXTENSIONS
Apple iOS Scanning Apps
- ABBY TextGrabber 6
- FineScanner PDF Scanner +OCR
- iScanner- PDF Document Scanner App
- OCR Scanner- Images & Documents to text
- Scanner Pro by Readdle
- Doc Scan
Apple iOS Annotation Apps that Promote Accessibility
Chrome Apps and Extensions for Accessibility
- Read and Write for Google Chrome
- Co:Writer Universal
- Snap and Read Universal
- Convert PDF to Google Docs in Google Docs
- Capti Voice
- Kami
Online OCR and Software OCR tools
Other Resources
- National Center on AEM
- Accessible Digital Documents resources on Maine CITE
- Accessible Web Design resources on Maine CITE
- Create PDF’s From Microsoft Office – Adobe.com
