Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Unreadable Text
Welcome to post three in our “Summer of Reading with Read&Write” series. For a quick reminder, Read&Write is free for all staff and students at RRC Polytech to use! While it has many, many, features, we’re highlighting the reading features in this blog series.
Disclaimer: this post assumes that users have both installed and signed into Read&Write, and self-registered in the Read&Write Tutorial in LEARN. If you haven’t, we suggest reviewing our Summer Reading with Read&Write – Kick Off blog post. We also suggest checking out post two Summer of Reading with Read&Write – Reading Basics.
Scan
The Scan feature, available only on the desktop version of Read&Write, turns non-readable text into text that Read&Write can read aloud. Some examples of non-readable text include: images of text; scanned pages; photocopies of text.
If you’re using the desktop version of Read&Write and cannot get the text read aloud, or it reads odd (like mispronounces words, reads words that span multiple lines as two separate words, etc…), digitally scan the file with Read&Write. The scan tool uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to “convert” that non-readable text into real, usable text (that can be read aloud).
How to Use Scan
- With Read&Write open, select the scan icon on the toolbar
- A new pop-up window will appear, select the file folder icon
- Then either drag and drop the file you want digitally scanned into the dashed box, or choose to “Select File(s)” (which opens your file explorer)
- Choose if you want a PDF or Word Doc created (we suggested sticking with the same file type as the original)
- Then select scan – when finished your document will automatically open in Read&Write
Screenshot Reader
The Screenshot Reader is available on both the desktop and web extension versions of Read&Write. We like to think of it as a “back up plan” when you cannot get text read aloud, and cannot use the scan feature. For example: text within an image, diagrams, and buttons on webpages.
How to use Screenshot Reader
Check out the Screenshot Reader section of the Read&Write Tutorial for text and video instructions on how to use the Screenshot Reader!
“Homework”
- Use the Scan feature on a PDF file (even if it reads properly)
- Use the Screenshot reader to read a paragraph of text from that same PDF file
AI Usage Acknowledgement
This post was jointly written by Copilot and a human.