Immersive Reader vs. Acrobat Read Out Loud Audio
Microsoft Word 365 has an immersive reader where the text is read out loud while panning and highlighting the text being read with options such as WPM adjustment. Trying to use the Read Out Loud function in Adobe Acrobat Reader is painful. It is hard to find, the synthetic voice is unpleasant and disruptive, and overall the accessibility for this feature seems to be the bare minimum. PDF's are the format of choice for scientific papers, which are rather dry reading material. An option to listen, following along while reading would greatly increase the efficacy of this program. I've personally been converting the PDFs to a Word Document and then using the immersive reader, but this workaround is imperfect as the conversion does not always result in a legible document, and alienates users from the native Adobe program. This program is in desperate need of updates to expand document accessibility to persons that may have impaired vision, ADHD, Dyslexia, etc.
Kat
shared this idea
Hi,
I understand the issue faced by you here. I can help you with some of the functionalities fo ROL.
1. Finding ROL : It can be found in View Menu → ROL → Activate ROL – > Read the document. Alternatively, you can use keyboard shortcut also i.e. Ctrl+Shift+Y(activate) then, Ctrl+Shift+V/B (read the document)
2. Secondly to change the voice you can install the voices from the system language setting and they will appear in Adobe Preferences → Reading → Under ROL setting. You can change it as per your convenience. You can also change Speed, Pitch go the ROL as well.
Having said that, we understand that the ROL is not a screen reader but a support given by the Adobe for reading the pdfs. We’re continuously working on this to make it better for our users.
I hope I have resolved the issues faced by you.
Thanks
Rachit
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yn
commented
Just to add if anyone else has this similar concern, the Acrobat Read Out Loud tool is NOT a compliant tool and will most likely read your content incorrectly. This has been the case for years and is apparently a left over "feature" from before 508 compliance started to take off. Instead, use a compliant screen reader such as JAWS or the free alternative, NVDA. Both of these readers will correctly read your PDF content while providing intuitive, complex navigation options. That is, of course, assuming that the PDF document itself is a compliant document with a proper tag structure tree, correct read order, etc.