Adobe Acrobat Access

Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) software can help everyone access information electronically - including those with visual disabilities.

Note that the Acrobat Access plug-ins do not work with the most recent version of Acrobat Reader, 3.0. Updated plug-ins will be available in December 1996.

Announcing Acrobat Access(TM) for Windows(R)!

Adobe is proud to introduce the Beta version of Adobe Acrobat Access plug-in for Microsoft(R) Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Acrobat Access makes PDF documents accessible to the blind and vision-impaired, and is available free from Adobe's Web site. More About the Acrobat Access for Windows
System Requirements
Installing Acrobat Access
Setting Up Your Web Browser With Acrobat and Acrobat Access
Getting Started With Acrobat Access
How to Report Bugs and Provide Feedback

PDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Visually Disabled

If you would like to know more about the accessibility issues associated with PDF and the use of the Adobe Acrobat Reader by the blind and vision-impaired, see the Adobe Access White Paper.

More About Acrobat Access for Windows

Acrobat Access is a plug-in to Adobe Acrobat designed to make information in PDF accessible to visually impaired users. (A "plug-in" is a piece of software that works with the standard Acrobat product and enhances its capability.) Acrobat Access presents an alternative view of the open PDF document in a separate window called the Access View that is designed to cooperate with screen reading programs. Screen readers work well today with one-column text that is oriented horizontally left to right and top to bottom. However, the screen reader programs do not work well with multicolumn or vertically oriented text. The limitations of the screen reading technology present a special challenge to PDF files, which are usually visually rich documents. PDF documents often have a complex layout that includes multiple columns of text, text on a curve, vertical text, and sometimes even invisible text. The Access View of the PDF document is designed to cooperate with screen reading programs for Windows by making text more readable for the visually impaired. For example, Acrobat Access presents multicolumn documents as a single column and "straightens" all nonhorizontal text.
Acrobat Access interacts with the primary Acrobat document display as seamlessly as possible and will allow the use of all standard Acrobat features, such as annotations and hypertext links. Additionally, Access allows the exporting of PDF to HTML 2.0 as well as to formatted ASCII.
The goal of Acrobat Access is to provide the user with a simplified reading order. This is often a difficult task, especially for multicolumn text files. In order to provide a simplified reading order, Acrobat Access includes an Enhanced Reading Order feature that attempts to infer the reading order of the document from its layout. The Enhanced Reading Order feature works similarly to Optical Character Recognition (OCR). While OCR approximates letters from their shapes on a page, the Enhanced Reading Order approximates paragraphs by analyzing how the characters are formatted on the page. Acrobat Access then determines what paragraphs are related according to a predetermined set of rules about document layout.

The Enhanced Reading Order feature works well with most common business documents, such as memos, reports, and proposals. Its performance, however, depends on the characteristics of the PDF document. For example, documents with many advertisements, which do not follow standard layout rules, may result in an incorrect or perplexing reading order. Documents with side bars or images with captions may also result in an incorrect reading order.
This first version of Acrobat Access has allowed users to overcome many obstacles and can be a very valuable to tool for reading PDF files. There are still many more obstacles to conquer, however, and Adobe is committed to improving this technology in future releases. Your input is valuable to this development process.
This Acrobat Access plug-in is a prerelease version, does not represent final product from Adobe, and may contain bugs, errors, and other problems that could cause system failures.

System Requirements

386- or 486-based personal computer (486 recommended)
Microsoft Windows 3.1, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups, Microsoft Windows 95, or Microsoft Windows NT(R) 3.51
4 MB application RAM

3 MB hard-disk space, plus 2 MB TEMP space available during installation
For Web integration, any Web browser that allows you to configure a helper application by mime type

Installing Acrobat Access

Acrobat Access is designed to work with the latest version of the Acrobat Reader software, which is distributed free by Adobe Systems Incorporated. The Acrobat Reader is available for downloading within this site.
Note that the Acrobat Access plug-ins do not work with the most recent version of Acrobat Reader, 3.0. Updated plug-ins will be available in December 1996.
Note that there are two versions: a version of Acrobat for Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups (16-bit), and a version for Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51(32-bit). Be sure to download the appropriate one. IMPORTANT: Please ignore any installation instructions regarding the configuration of the Netscape(TM) Navigator(TM) Web browser with Acrobat. Instead, here are the special instructions for configuring any Web browser for use with Acrobat and the Acrobat Access plug-in that you will find later in this document.

Next, to install Acrobat Access, choose either the instructions for Microsoft Windows 3.1/Windows for Workgroups OR the instructions for Windows 95/Windows NT 3.51 below.

Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups Instructions

To install the 16-bit Acrobat Access plug-in for use only with Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Microsoft Windows for Workgroups:

Download the archive file ACCS16B1.EXE to the plug_ins subdirectory where your Acrobat file is installed.
Download ACCS16B1.EXE (298415 bytes) updated 3 May 1996

TIP: By default, the Acrobat Reader will install into the c:\acrobat\acroweb directory. The path, therefore the plug_ins directory, is probably c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins.

Execute the ACCS16B1.EXE file by either 1) selecting it from the File Manager and pressing Enter or Return. or 2) executing it from a MS DOS(R) window

The following files will be placed in the plug_ins directory:

access.txt
(Information on installing and getting started with Access)

access16.api
(An executable dll for Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups)

infer16.api
(Also an executable dll)

feedback.txt
(An ASCII feedback form)

bugform.txt
(An ASCII bug form)

keys.txt
(An ASCII quick reference to Access)

help_a.pdf
(An on-line help file for Access in PDF format)

The help_a.pdf file needs to be located in the help subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed.

1) Go to the subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed, usually c:\acrobat\acroweb:
C: CD \ACROBAT\ACROWEB
2) Create a help subdirectory there if it does not exist:

MKDIR HELP
3) Copy the help_a.pdf file from the plug_ins subdirectory to the help subdirectory:

COPY PLUG_INS\HELP_A.PDF HELP\HELP_A.PDF

Installation requires approximately 1.5 MB of free hard-disk space.

Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 Instructions:

To install the 32-bit Acrobat Access plug-in for use only with Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT 3.51:

Download the archive file ACCS32B1.EXE to the plug_ins subdirectory where your Acrobat Reader is installed.

Download ACCS32B1.EXE (395397 bytes) updated 3 May 1996

TIP: By default, the Acrobat Reader will install into the c:\acrobat\acrowebdirectory. The path, therefore, to the plug_ins directory is probably c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins.

Execute the ACCS32B1.EXE file by either 1) selecting it from the Windows Explorer and pressing Enter or Return or 2) executing it from an MS DOS window.

The following files will be placed in the plug_ins directory:

access.txt
(Information on installing and getting started with Access)

access32.api
(An executable dll for Windows 95 and Windows NT)

infer32.api
(Also an executable dll)

feedback.txt
(An ASCII feedback form)

bugform.txt
(An ASCII bug form)

keys.txt
(An ASCII quick reference to Access)

help_a.pdf
(An on-line help file for Access in PDF format)

The help_a.pdf file needs to be located in the help subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed.

1) Go to the subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed, usually c:\acrobat\acroweb:

C: CD \ACROBAT\ACROWEB
2) Create a help subdirectory if it does not exist:
MKDIR HELP
3) Copy the help_a.pdf file from the plug_ins subdirectory to the help subdirectory:

COPY PLUG_INS\HELP_A.PDF HELP\HELP_A.PDF

Installation requires approximately 1.5 MB of free hard-disk space.

Setting Up Your Web Browser With Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Access Software

If you have a Web browser and would like to set up your browser to view PDF documents, this section provides instructions on how to configure the browser.
The Acrobat Reader has a special feature for viewing PDF files a page at a time in the Netscape Navigator browser window. Unfortunately, limitations of the Netscape Application Programming Interface (API) do not allow us to offer that capability to users of Acrobat Access.

Instead, Acrobat Reader will be integrated with your browser as an external viewer or helper application.

Getting Started With Acrobat Access

Once you have Acrobat Reader and the Acrobat Access plug-in installed, here are a few pointers to get you started.

Launch the Acrobat Reader.

Instructions for Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups:

From the Program Manager, select the Adobe Acrobat Program Group.
Then, select the Acrobat Reader program item and press Enter or Return.

Instructions for Windows 95:

Select the Start button from the Task Bar. From the pop-up menu, select Programs, and then Adobe Acrobat, and finally select Acrobat Reader and press Enter or Return.

To read the Access help file, choose the following menu sequence from the Acrobat menu:

1) Help
2) Plug-in Help
3) Acrobat Access

This menu sequence will open the Acrobat Access help file, which is a PDF document.

TIP: If you don't see help for Acrobat Access in the plug-in help menu, you may have had some installation problems. Please try to reinstall Acrobat Access.

TIP: If you get an error opening the help file, you may not have copied the help file to the help directory. You can instead open the file directly from the following directory: c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins\help_a.pdf.

Finally, to bring up the Access view of this document, press <CONTROL>+Q simultaneously. At this point, your screen reading program should be able to read the Access view of the help file. The help file covers all of the features of Acrobat Access, including how to set up Acrobat so that the Access view is the default document view.

More Tips: You are only one key stroke away from a quick reference for all of the Access commands:

<CONTROL> + 9 toggles a quick reference for Access.

Since it is a toggle, you can make the quick reference go away by just pressing<CONTROL> + 9 again.

How to Report Bugs or to Provide Feedback

Please report bugs and provide feedback by sending an e-mail message to access-b@adobe.com. Please include the following information:

Name
Company Name
Address
E-mail address
Phone
Operating System
CPU
Screen Reading Program
Acrobat Amber Version
Web Browser

Note that there is a text version of a bug form (bugform.txt) that is downloaded with the Acrobat Access plug-in. You can use this as a starting point for submitting bugs if you desire.

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Copyright © 1996 Adobe Systems Incorporated.
All rights reserved.
Legal notices and trademark attributions.

Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) software can help everyone access information electronically - including those with visual disabilities.
Note that the Acrobat Access plug-ins do not work with the most recent version of Acrobat Reader, 3.0. Updated plug-ins will be available in December 1996.
Announcing Acrobat Access(TM) for Windows(R)!
Adobe is proud to introduce the Beta version of Adobe Acrobat Access plug-in for Microsoft(R) Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Acrobat Access makes PDF documents accessible to the blind and vision-impaired, and is available free from Adobe's Web site.		More About the Acrobat Access for Windows System Requirements Installing Acrobat Access Setting Up Your Web Browser With Acrobat and Acrobat Access Getting Started With Acrobat Access How to Report Bugs and Provide Feedback
PDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Visually Disabled
If you would like to know more about the accessibility issues associated with PDF and the use of the Adobe Acrobat Reader by the blind and vision-impaired, see the Adobe Access White Paper.
More About Acrobat Access for Windows
Acrobat Access is a plug-in to Adobe Acrobat designed to make information in PDF accessible to visually impaired users. (A "plug-in" is a piece of software that works with the standard Acrobat product and enhances its capability.) Acrobat Access presents an alternative view of the open PDF document in a separate window called the Access View that is designed to cooperate with screen reading programs. Screen readers work well today with one-column text that is oriented horizontally left to right and top to bottom. However, the screen reader programs do not work well with multicolumn or vertically oriented text. The limitations of the screen reading technology present a special challenge to PDF files, which are usually visually rich documents. PDF documents often have a complex layout that includes multiple columns of text, text on a curve, vertical text, and sometimes even invisible text. The Access View of the PDF document is designed to cooperate with screen reading programs for Windows by making text more readable for the visually impaired. For example, Acrobat Access presents multicolumn documents as a single column and "straightens" all nonhorizontal text. Acrobat Access interacts with the primary Acrobat document display as seamlessly as possible and will allow the use of all standard Acrobat features, such as annotations and hypertext links. Additionally, Access allows the exporting of PDF to HTML 2.0 as well as to formatted ASCII. The goal of Acrobat Access is to provide the user with a simplified reading order. This is often a difficult task, especially for multicolumn text files. In order to provide a simplified reading order, Acrobat Access includes an Enhanced Reading Order feature that attempts to infer the reading order of the document from its layout. The Enhanced Reading Order feature works similarly to Optical Character Recognition (OCR). While OCR approximates letters from their shapes on a page, the Enhanced Reading Order approximates paragraphs by analyzing how the characters are formatted on the page. Acrobat Access then determines what paragraphs are related according to a predetermined set of rules about document layout.		The Enhanced Reading Order feature works well with most common business documents, such as memos, reports, and proposals. Its performance, however, depends on the characteristics of the PDF document. For example, documents with many advertisements, which do not follow standard layout rules, may result in an incorrect or perplexing reading order. Documents with side bars or images with captions may also result in an incorrect reading order. This first version of Acrobat Access has allowed users to overcome many obstacles and can be a very valuable to tool for reading PDF files. There are still many more obstacles to conquer, however, and Adobe is committed to improving this technology in future releases. Your input is valuable to this development process. This Acrobat Access plug-in is a prerelease version, does not represent final product from Adobe, and may contain bugs, errors, and other problems that could cause system failures.
System Requirements
386- or 486-based personal computer (486 recommended) Microsoft Windows 3.1, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups, Microsoft Windows 95, or Microsoft Windows NT(R) 3.51 4 MB application RAM		3 MB hard-disk space, plus 2 MB TEMP space available during installation For Web integration, any Web browser that allows you to configure a helper application by mime type
Installing Acrobat Access
Acrobat Access is designed to work with the latest version of the Acrobat Reader software, which is distributed free by Adobe Systems Incorporated. The Acrobat Reader is available for downloading within this site. Note that the Acrobat Access plug-ins do not work with the most recent version of Acrobat Reader, 3.0. Updated plug-ins will be available in December 1996. Note that there are two versions: a version of Acrobat for Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups (16-bit), and a version for Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51(32-bit). Be sure to download the appropriate one. IMPORTANT: Please ignore any installation instructions regarding the configuration of the Netscape(TM) Navigator(TM) Web browser with Acrobat. Instead, here are the special instructions for configuring any Web browser for use with Acrobat and the Acrobat Access plug-in that you will find later in this document.		Next, to install Acrobat Access, choose either the instructions for Microsoft Windows 3.1/Windows for Workgroups OR the instructions for Windows 95/Windows NT 3.51 below.
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups Instructions
To install the 16-bit Acrobat Access plug-in for use only with Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Microsoft Windows for Workgroups: Download the archive file ACCS16B1.EXE to the plug_ins subdirectory where your Acrobat file is installed. Download ACCS16B1.EXE (298415 bytes) updated 3 May 1996 TIP: By default, the Acrobat Reader will install into the c:\acrobat\acroweb directory. The path, therefore the plug_ins directory, is probably c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins. Execute the ACCS16B1.EXE file by either 1) selecting it from the File Manager and pressing Enter or Return. or 2) executing it from a MS DOS(R) window The following files will be placed in the plug_ins directory: `access.txt` (Information on installing and getting started with Access) `access16.api` (An executable dll for Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups) `infer16.api` (Also an executable dll) `feedback.txt` (An ASCII feedback form) `bugform.txt` (An ASCII bug form) `keys.txt` (An ASCII quick reference to Access) `help_a.pdf` (An on-line help file for Access in PDF format)		The help_a.pdf file needs to be located in the help subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed. 1) Go to the subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed, usually c:\acrobat\acroweb: `C: CD \ACROBAT\ACROWEB` 2) Create a help subdirectory there if it does not exist: `MKDIR HELP` 3) Copy the help_a.pdf file from the plug_ins subdirectory to the help subdirectory: `COPY PLUG_INS\HELP_A.PDF HELP\HELP_A.PDF` Installation requires approximately 1.5 MB of free hard-disk space.
Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 Instructions:
To install the 32-bit Acrobat Access plug-in for use only with Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows NT 3.51: Download the archive file ACCS32B1.EXE to the plug_ins subdirectory where your Acrobat Reader is installed. Download ACCS32B1.EXE (395397 bytes) updated 3 May 1996 TIP: By default, the Acrobat Reader will install into the c:\acrobat\acrowebdirectory. The path, therefore, to the plug_ins directory is probably c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins. Execute the ACCS32B1.EXE file by either 1) selecting it from the Windows Explorer and pressing Enter or Return or 2) executing it from an MS DOS window. The following files will be placed in the plug_ins directory: `access.txt` (Information on installing and getting started with Access) `access32.api` (An executable dll for Windows 95 and Windows NT) `infer32.api` (Also an executable dll) `feedback.txt` (An ASCII feedback form) `bugform.txt` (An ASCII bug form) `keys.txt` (An ASCII quick reference to Access) `help_a.pdf` (An on-line help file for Access in PDF format)		The help_a.pdf file needs to be located in the help subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed. 1) Go to the subdirectory where the Acrobat Reader is installed, usually c:\acrobat\acroweb: `C: CD \ACROBAT\ACROWEB` 2) Create a help subdirectory if it does not exist: `MKDIR HELP` 3) Copy the help_a.pdf file from the plug_ins subdirectory to the help subdirectory: `COPY PLUG_INS\HELP_A.PDF HELP\HELP_A.PDF` Installation requires approximately 1.5 MB of free hard-disk space.
Setting Up Your Web Browser With Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Access Software
If you have a Web browser and would like to set up your browser to view PDF documents, this section provides instructions on how to configure the browser. The Acrobat Reader has a special feature for viewing PDF files a page at a time in the Netscape Navigator browser window. Unfortunately, limitations of the Netscape Application Programming Interface (API) do not allow us to offer that capability to users of Acrobat Access.		Instead, Acrobat Reader will be integrated with your browser as an external viewer or helper application.
Getting Started With Acrobat Access
Once you have Acrobat Reader and the Acrobat Access plug-in installed, here are a few pointers to get you started. Launch the Acrobat Reader. Instructions for Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups: From the Program Manager, select the Adobe Acrobat Program Group. Then, select the Acrobat Reader program item and press Enter or Return. Instructions for Windows 95: Select the Start button from the Task Bar. From the pop-up menu, select Programs, and then Adobe Acrobat, and finally select Acrobat Reader and press Enter or Return. To read the Access help file, choose the following menu sequence from the Acrobat menu: 1) Help 2) Plug-in Help 3) Acrobat Access This menu sequence will open the Acrobat Access help file, which is a PDF document. TIP: If you don't see help for Acrobat Access in the plug-in help menu, you may have had some installation problems. Please try to reinstall Acrobat Access. TIP: If you get an error opening the help file, you may not have copied the help file to the help directory. You can instead open the file directly from the following directory: c:\acrobat\acroweb\plug_ins\help_a.pdf.		Finally, to bring up the Access view of this document, press <CONTROL>+Q simultaneously. At this point, your screen reading program should be able to read the Access view of the help file. The help file covers all of the features of Acrobat Access, including how to set up Acrobat so that the Access view is the default document view. More Tips: You are only one key stroke away from a quick reference for all of the Access commands: <CONTROL> + 9 toggles a quick reference for Access. Since it is a toggle, you can make the quick reference go away by just pressing<CONTROL> + 9 again.
How to Report Bugs or to Provide Feedback
Please report bugs and provide feedback by sending an e-mail message to access-b@adobe.com. Please include the following information: Name Company Name Address E-mail address Phone Operating System CPU Screen Reading Program Acrobat Amber Version Web Browser		Note that there is a text version of a bug form (bugform.txt) that is downloaded with the Acrobat Access plug-in. You can use this as a starting point for submitting bugs if you desire.