VoiceOver Getting Started for Leopard DAISY/Braille/audio
I missed an announcement by Greg Kearney from the start of November - sorry about that. Here’s the announcement:
I have produced VoiceOver Getting Started for Leopard as a DAISY 2.02 and DAISY/NISO 2005 book. This is a full text/full audio book with images and image descriptions.
The voice is Alex, navigation is by chapters, sub-chapters and page numbers. The audio is in playable order so the book can be played in MP3 playback devices. You will not have the DAISY navigation features however.
You can also download the book in the following addional fromats:
- MP3 audio (single file)
- iPod Audio book (m4b)
- U.S. Grade 2 Braille (BRF)
I’d like to thank Mike Shebanek at Apple for getting me the files to make this book and for permission to do it.
The books are free and can be downloaded at http://www.cucat.org/books/vogs/vogs.php
The audio downloads are mostly over 50mb, but the PDF and other non-audio versions are closer to 10mb depending on format. For those who are interested, the getting started for Tiger - OS X 10.4 - versions are also still available at the same site.
A huge thanks goes out to Greg for these, and his continuing work for the OS X disability community.
- Ricky Buchanan
Hi,
I really appreciate the Book. Thanks a lot for it.
I notice what seems me that is a bug of VoiceOver.
In the book we read:
“Content: This voice speaks text in content areas. These can include scroll areas, lists,
HTML content areas, and documents.
Status: This voice lets you know the current state of buttons and other controls. For
example, the status of a checkbox is either “checked” or “unchecked.” ”
So, like I’m using a Portuguese synthesizer (Célia)r, I put the Portuguese to read Content and Alex to Read Status.
I note that the HTMl lists in Portuguese () are reading by Alex… Ohh!! When I put Célia also to read Status then is Célia that read the text in lists, but also read the other english status messages.
There are some way to report this to Apple?
Thanks, JF
@JF: That must be very frustrating, an English voice would do a very bad job of reading Portuguese! I suggest you email accessibility@apple.com explaining just what you put in that comment. If you are a member of the MacVisionaries mailing list you could also write to the mailing list as several programmers are on the list and could report the bug in a more official way - there’s details about MacVisionaries on my links page.
Best of luck - and if you find the bug’s been fixed in future, please come back and let me know so I can spread the good news!
- Ricky
Hello Ricky,
This is a wonderful resource, and is greatly appreciated. Where may I find the cassette tape version of “VoiceOver Getting Started for Leopard”? I have a blind friend who is having trouble with his computer, so I am bidding on e-bay for a Mac Mini with Leopard, so that he can use VoiceOver.
Thank you,
Tiana Mylene
@Tiana: Apple has more formats available on their VoiceOver Downloads Page. I suspect the closest you’ll come to cassette tape is to download the audio and make your own CDs, really. Not much new audio material is produced on cassette any more.
Good luck to your friend.