Hi, You can check out offerings by CourseSmart and Inkling that are publishers' initiatives which provide mainstream applications for textbooks that are accessible to visually impaired users. Also, there are some iPad specific textbook initiatives that are being launched commercially. As Richard suggested, there are also applications such as Read2Go and Learning Ally that distribute reading materials specifically to the visually impaired from Bookshare and Learning Ally, and require medical certification of visual or print disability.
You don't describe the possibility of using any platform except for iOS. More extensive discussions about accessible textbook access on both desktop computers and iOS devices is usually carried out on other Mac discussion lists, such as macvisionaries (at Google Groups) or the mac-access list (at mac-access.net). There may also be Windows-specific lists that discuss this, but the Mac list discussions usually also cover people who have switched from Windows, or are still running Windows in a virtual machine on their Macs. It's possible to read books with Adobe's ADE DRM software using Adobe Digital Editions Preview with screen readers on both platforms. That's the most common form of DRM used -- different from Apple's Fairplay DRM -- and commercial textbook sites will sell digital ePub versions with ADE DRM that can be read this way. Regular library eBook downloads through OverDrive Media Console on iOS devices have ADE DRM that can be read through the free OverDrive Media Console iOS app (which also plays library downloaded audiobooks), or can be read with Adobe Digital Editions Preview on desktop machines. The experience is OK through the OverDrive app, but not as good as through iBooks and Kobo Books as far as navigation, searching, and other features. Reading the same eBook through Adobe Digital Editions on the desktop is (subjectively) better. I believe that the Amazon Kindle has a Kindle app for PCs that is accessible to Windows screen readers -- it's not accessible on the Mac. That would be another possibility for text books, but with another DRM format that cannot be read on iOS devices. Also, there may be different considerations for a low vision user in contrast to one who optionally uses VoiceOver. Try doing a search of the forums, or else use the link to the Mail Archive site to run your searches. Unfortunately, archiving only started at that site for this list back in April, so any of the previous 3 years of posts have to be searched under Google Groups, which is less efficient. However, both macvisionaries and the mac-access list have secondary archives at the Mail Archive site: • viphone list http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone%40googlegroups.com/ • macvisionaries list http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/ • mac-access list http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access%40mac-access.net/ HTH. Cheers, Esther On Aug 20, 2012, at 13:49, Richard Turner wrote: > The chances are getting better as apple has teamed up with some of the > scholastic publishers to begin offering more textbooks. > You may also want to check out bookshare .org and learning ally. > HTH, > > Richard > > On Aug 20, 2012, at 4:05 PM, Tom Rash <dadnthed...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> What are the chances of finding high school text. Books on the ipod through >> the ibook store? My son, who is visually impaired, and, of course, they do >> not have the large print books yet.. >> Any sources for text books yet. >> > > > --
