~ Kindle for PC with accessibility
1. Introduction
Amazon, the makers of the hardware Kindle eBookreader, have developed free software versions to enable their books to be read
on a variety of computers and mobile phones. Kindle for PC is the software version
which runs on Windows XP and later computers.
The standard version of Kindle for PC
incorporates keyboard accessibility and a number of display options of
potential use to low vision users. However, while an external screen reader can
navigate the menus and controls, it is not possible to access or read the
content of a book with the standard version.
While the hardware Kindle Keyboard has
text-to-speech built in, Amazon allow publishers to prevent this feature
working with their titles. The information about each book on the Kindle store
thus includes whether text-to-speech is "enabled" or
"disabled".
Amazon also have a version of Kindle for PC
which incorporates a text-to-speech feature for book content. This feature works for all books downloaded
from the Kindle store, even those which have text-to-speech disabled. (Note that although Amazon also allow
subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, these are not available on the PC
version.)
2. Installing Kindle for PC and getting books
Installation of Kindle for PC is
straightforward - there are no options or questions. At the end of the
installation the software starts with a dialogue on which you must register by
logging into an existing Amazon account. The dialogue offers the option of
creating a new account, but this does not work with a screen reader. An
alternative is to use a web browser to go to the Amazon site and create your
account there, then return to this dialogue and log into your account.
On the Home screen, there is a "Shop
in Kindle Store" button which opens a browser at the Kindle store page. If
you can't find this button with a screen reader, you can get to the Kindle
store by opening a web browser and going to http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindlebooks.
From here you can purchase and download books, or download samples of books to
try before you buy. There are a number of free books available also, although
note you still have to have an Amazon account and "buy" these books for
£0.00 to get them!
The
page of information for a book will tell you whether the text-to-speech has
been disabled. If you are using a screen reader, you can tell you are on a page
of information for a book because it will have the title of the book as a level
1 heading. The text-to-speech information is currently given under the Product
Details heading on this page.
Each
book has a free sample available. The button used to acquire the sample is
mislabelled for screen readers. One way to find it is to go to the "Try it
Free" heading, and then arrow down to a button labelled "Buy now with
1-Click". The visual label for this button is "Send sample now".
3. Opening a book
With focus in the list of books available,
use arrow keys to move around. The list will include books on your device and
those not yet downloaded ("in the cloud"). To find out if a book is
on your device, press the Applications key or Shift-F10 to open its context
menu, then press UpArrow. If the item with focus is "Download", then
the book is not on your device, and you can press Enter to start downloading
it. Downloading should only take a few seconds.
Once a book is on your device, you can
press Ctrl-O to open it. If you press Ctrl-O on a book which is in the cloud,
it will download and then open.
4. Keystrokes for reading
Kindle for PC opens on the Home screen, which contains all the books in your library. Arrow between them, noting that you may need to use left and right arrows as well as up and down arrows to get to all the books available. When you find the book you want to read, press Ctrl-O to open it. You can then use the following to read it – note that a screen reader must be running before these commands will work:
Read navigation instructions - Ctrl-I
Start reading (from top of page) - Ctrl-R
Pause/Restart reading - Space Bar or F6
Toggle voice (male/female) - Ctrl-Shift-V
Increase speech rate - Shift-Plus
Decrease speech rate - Shift-Minus
Toggle between reading by one page and
continuously - Ctrl-Shift-C
Read current sentence from beginning -
Ctrl-Comma
Read Previous sentence - Ctrl-Shift-UpArrow
or Ctrl-Shift-LeftArrow
Skip forward one sentence -
Ctrl-Shift-DownArrow or Ctrl-Shift-RightArrow
Announce current location within a book -
Ctrl-P
Read the name and author of the open book -
Ctrl-L
Add note to whole page - Ctrl-Shift-N
Highlight whole page - Ctrl-Shift-H
Jump to Reading Pane - Ctrl-Shift-R
Open the Font size dialogue - Ctrl-Shift-F
Increase words per line - Ctrl-Shift-Plus
Decrease words per line - Ctrl-Shift-Minus
Increase Font Size - Ctrl-Plus
Decrease Font Size - Ctrl-Minus
Restore Default Font Size - Ctrl-0
5. Points to bear in mind
Good points:
·
The
text-to-speech feature works even for books which have text-to-speech set to "not
enabled" in the Kindle store.
·
It is
possible to read by page, or continuously read.
·
It is
possible to reread the current sentence, and jump to the next or previous
sentences.
·
There are
two voices (one male and one female) and three speeds.
·
There is a
play/pause keystroke so that reading, once interrupted, can be restarted
without losing your place.
Bad points:
·
It is not
possible to navigate at less than the sentence level, or spell a word.
·
You cannot
choose what punctuation is spoken.
·
Help
information on the text-to-speech feature is not available from within the
Kindle for PC application. It is only available from the web page given in the
introduction to this document.
·
Although
Kindle remembers the page if the application is closed, the position within the
page is not remembered by the text-to-speech, so this always restarts at the
top of the page.
Other points:
·
A screen
reader must be running before the Kindle text-to-speech feature works. If you
are a screen reader user, of course, you will need your screen reader to read
the list of books available within Kindle, and then choose the one to open. The
Kindle text-to-speech is only used to read the content of the book you have
opened.
·
The voices
used are Nuance's Samantha and Tom, both of which are American.
·
The
default setting is single page reading mode. If you prefer continuous reading
mode, you have to switch it on each time you start Kindle for PC.
·
Other
voice settings - sex and speed - are remembered between sessions.
·
There are
a number of undocumented keystrokes: Ctrl-Shift-F opens the Font size dialogue;
Ctrl-Shift-Plus increases words per line, Ctrl-Shift-Minus decreases words per
line.
·
The Help
feature opens a web page. Therefore, if there is no Internet connection, no help
is available.
·
The
keystrokes for reading the current, next and previous sentences all invoke the
"read" command, so once you press one of them, Kindle carries on and
reads the rest of the page.
·
In single
page reading mode, minimising the font size (Ctrl-minus repeatedly) and
maximising the number of words per line (Ctrl-Shift-Plus repeatedly) minimises
the number of times the "next page" and "read" commands
must be issued.
·
On Windows
7 the latest versions of NVDA, Thunder, System Access, Supernova Screen Reader,
Windows-Eyes and JAWS all work well with Kindle for PC.
·
The book
list area of the screen contains spoken help information on navigation. These
are set by Amazon and cannot be turned off.
·
The Help
menu contains a "send feedback" option, which may be useful for
reporting good and bad aspects of the software.
6. Next steps
The addition of text to speech is a big
step forward for Kindle for PC accessibility, and we hope this means more blind
people use and enjoy it.
There are still areas which RNIB would like
to see improved, for instance greater flexibility in terms of navigation and
pronunciation of punctuation, and the ability to use one’s own screen reader or
voices.
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