[bksvol-discuss] Re: Apple anyone?
- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:26:33 -0500
Hi, Mary Anne. I took a look at scanning technology on the Mac recently when
considering which laptop to buy. I really like so many things about the Mac,
but Bookshare work was my sticking point. I spoke with nine blind Mac users
and ended up with more questions than answers. I learned that there is a
version of OmniPage for the Mac and a version of FineReader as well. I was
told that VoiceOver will work with OmniPage with a few quirks. There is no
program comparable to Kurzweil for a Mac. I have also been told that
Microsoft Office doesn't work with speech on a Mac. For those reasons, I
chose not to buy one since a lot of my time is spent scanning and
validating. If you have sight, these issues won't be a problem for you. If
you use speech, you would need to find a program that can handle rtf files
and that will notify you of the presence of page breaks. I think we have a
couple of Mac users who volunteer for Bookshare. I don't know if they use
their Mac for their volunteering though since they have multiple computers.
The volunteer I did speak with told me that I would need to deal with some
formatting quirks. I really want to use a Mac and see what it's like. I
couldn't justify spending the money on one with so many unknowns since I'd
have to buy a totally new scanning package and such. I don't intend to sound
negative here. I can only describe my experiences. I hope you'll be able to
prove me wrong and make me regret buying a Dell. (grin)
Monica Willyard
"The best way to predict the future is to create it." -- Peter Drucker
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