Blind people reading books using Nuance Talks on the Phone

[Manu]

Information about current version of Quick Reading on Mobile is in the post at 3rd heading on this page.
The message bellow is for an earlier version, the current one is 2.1.

Reading books with Talks on the phone
Translated by Teofil Pintilie from romanian section of this Forum
Scripts for Jaws and tutorial written by Emanuel boboiu

After two days’ research, I can finally come up with a quick and easy way of reading on mobile phone with Talks. I’m talking here about Symbian 3rd edition phones and nNuance Talks 3.5 / 3.6. We didn’t test it on other devices, but it worked well on two E51 and it should be fitful for E50, 6120 and as they might say, on anything above as well.

First of all we all know that Quick Office is not accesible for Talks and we do not sort it out by saving the book in TXT format, because it does not offer a possibility to return to the place of last stop. So, what we needed was a way of finding exactly the place where we interupted our reading, or one nearby.
So, the trick we finally came by was to use the only format that is now perfectly accesible, the HTML format, to read in the browser as if we were on an internet page. So, the next step was the conversion of RTF or DOC formats in HTML. We could have simply achieved that, but what we neded was also a complex JavaScript inside the contents of every file converted in HTML. Without that Java Script Talks does not read in browser. For the pages that come from without, through WLan or GPRS the code is automaticaly inserted by the screen reader, but for the HTML files imported from a computer it works no longer, reading only the title “contents” on the first page.
Working on this premises, I can now come up with a way of having a book accesible in HTML format in less than five minutes where else before we had only the incompatible Word format. The system I will present as follows, has the advantage of finalizing a HTML format with bookmarks once at every 15000 characters. The bookmarks will look as “Heading level 1 - Bookmark 1", "Heading level 1 - Bookmark 2" until "Heading level 1 - Bookmark 50”. So, while reading, we notice the bookmarks we come across, by, and we should remember the last bookmark before closing the book. When reopening it, we find the bookmark with the standard key for headings, which is key 4 on the phone. And then we can press talks key and down arrow, and Talks will begin to read the text again.
To create the HTML files, we need: a pattern (a template), which you can download here, and the scripts for Jaws that you can download here. Extract the content of boath files, The pattern will result in a file named Pattern for Talks readable text.html, and the scripts in a folder called Scripts format text for Talks. First we have to bring the scripts in the apropriate location. Copy the three files (notepad.jkm, notepad.jsb and notepad.jsd) from the folder scripts into C / documents and settings / administrator (or the name of the computer) / Aplication data / FreedomScientific / Jaws / (the version you use 9.0 or 10.0) / settings / enu here you press paste and here the files will stay for the future.
Now we can step further, to process a book for Talks.
First we open the pattern in Notepad. We can open the file in Notepad by using the "Open with" option, in the context menu. Caution, if you change the name of the pattern in order to give it the name of the book, do not delete the HTML extension which allows the phone to open it. Here you have to be careful not to modify the existing text in the Notepad. If you open it for the first time, the word wrap might not be activated. You check it in the Format menu, in Notepad. Than we go to the book we want to accesibilize, which can be opened in Wordpad, Microsoft Word or any other editor. You select the text and copy it with ctrl + c into clipboard. Then we can press an arrow to unselect the text, then, having the text into clipboard, we place again on the notepad window of the pattern and use the combination ctrl + shift + h, (it comes from html). From this moment on we stop all activities until Notepad closes and the text is processed. While working, jaws will inform us concerning the percentage, it can take nearly two minutes. When Notepad closes you will hear a greeting, enjoy reading, from the I T Department of Pontes, Than you can take the file and transfer it on the phone with the data cable. Then you open it there in the browser and by pressing talks and down arrow key the reading will start. You can stop it by pressing a long talks or any key. The next time when you open the book, you can return to the place where you stopped reading. While reading you notice that you came across a bookmark. These are heading level one bookmarks, so we can press 4 key until we hear the number of the last bookmark we red last time.

Some useful details:
If you have a big book, it will be perhaps better to copy it in two or even three parts if it has more than 1200000 characters. Jaws 9 or 10 informs us when selecting text, how many characters are selected. The bookmarks can content between 500000 and 600000 characters. If there are more, after the last bookmark you will have to much text with no bookmark. Dostoievski’s Crime and punishment (romanian translation), for instance, has around 1250000 characters. Perhaps it will be the best to divide it in three parts, each containing around 400000 characters. If you have a short text, only the first bookmarks will be filled with text; the others having nothing between them.
Caution, when you copy the text from Microsoft Word or Wordpad, you will not use the paste command, (ctrl + v) - this will be made automaticaly, the only thing you have to do is press ctrl + shift + h when you have the text in clipboard. Don’t press any key when the process takes place. Don’t press alt + tab to move, don’t touch the mouse, until the action is performed.

I’ve been helped by Velicu Gruia who made tests and statistics on various books. He was the first to rise the question: why couldn’t we read books on the phone, what could we do to help this?
From now on anyone who has ideas can place them here for a better development, until the possibility will occur to read directly in Quick Word.

More programs, games and scripts created by Pontes IT Department, at www.scripts.pontes.ro

[Manu]

If someone is interested to talk about these subjects in English section of this Forum, send a mail to manu@pontes.ro. Specify the username and initial password. We'll creat for you an acount having as default the English interface. After that you can modify the password.
Welcome!

[Manu]

Hello,

After installing Quick Reading on Mobile, you will find on the desktop an icon named Quick Reading on Mobile 2.1.
Pressing enter on it, Notepad will open.
Here you must have in Format menu, the option “Word Wrap” not checked.
Open the document in your text editor with the book you want to convert, select all and copy the content to clipboard.
When you are on the Notepad window with the template opened, press Control + Shift + H to start the process. Don’t press Control + V to paste the text, this will be done automatically for you.
First of all, a question will appear: “Are you sure you want to convert?”. Press Yes or No.
After, an edit box will appear asking the name for the document and file.
Another edit will appear asking for the distance between bookmarks. The distance is calculated in Page_Downs. 10 Page_Downs mean approximately 5 Word pages.
Wait until Notepad will close.
During the process, don’t do anything, don’t touch the keyboard. It is better to have your Messenger closed.

The book converted into HTML will be found in your Documents folder.

You must copy the converted file into your Mobile Phone and open it pressing Select Key on it.
Your Internet Browser will open the document without connecting to internet. For each Bookmark you will find a heading Level 2. During reading the book, you will hear: “Heading Level 2 - Bookmark 1”, “Heading Level 2 - Bookmark 2” etc. Next time you will open the book on your mobile, you can find the bookmark pressing “H” Key 4 on you keypad. Press key 4 until you will hear “Heading Level 2 – Bookmark x”, where x is the bookmark you were last time.

Another keystroke is Control + Shift + I. This will check the clipboard and will say the number of characters you have there. It is useful to be sure your text is copied there.

This version works with Microsoft Windows English interface.
It is tested with Symbian 3rd Edition with Nuance Talks 3.6 and 4.0.
The Say All command in Nuance Talks is Talks Key + Down Arrow.

Important!
You have in Start Menu, group Pontes Tools, group Quick Reading Mobile, an option: “Check for Updates”.

Download Quick Reading on Mobile 2.1 - English Version

Enjoy!

More programs, games and scripts created by Pontes IT Department, at www.scripts.pontes.ro