Software products:

Screen readers :- A screen reader is a TSR. This means it will stay loaded in the background to make your normal applications talk. The actual sound comes from your sound card through either the speakers or headphones. This is a step forward from the separate synthesizers that used to be needed. The screen reader is able to determine what needs to be spoken as it appears on the screen and it gives you several ways to have the information spoken back to you as you type. You may hear either full words when you press the space bar or every letter you type. The screen reader will work better with some programs than others. It will depend on how close the program follows certain standards. Also screen readers come with scripting for programs that are widely used like MS Word and Internet Explorer. These programs will work almost flawlessly.

Screen enlargement software :- These programs also load in the background. Both the widely used screen enlargment packages come in two levels. They can be purchased to enlarge information on the screen or with an addition of speech to help people with more limited vision. This is not as much speech as in a screen reader and is not enough speech for someone who has no usable vision. These programs come with a collection of features that give you a different ways of viewing the screen. They will magnify the information from two to sixteen times. As you can imagine, if you make the information too large, you will greatly diminish the usability of the product. You can also change the cursor to make it easier to follow and you can change the background and foreground colors.

Optical Characters Recognition Products :- ORC products are available for people who are blind and low vision as well as for people with learning disabilities. Originally people with learning disabilities used the bilndness products but recently new products have been developed for people who can see and perfectly well but have difficulties processing information. ORC packages use standard scanners to bring a picture of the printed page into the computer. The text is then recognized and read aloud as well as displayed in large print. The document can be edited and changed and brought into another program such as a word processor. The learning diability products add features for writing such as word prediction and include other features to help people study and retain information.

Braille translation software :- The Braille translator will convert computer text that has been stored or created, into usable grade 2 braille. This is the standard braille that is used in the United States. Math will also be needed to be translated into Nemeth Code before it is embossed. Braille translation software makes it easy for someone who knows very little about braille to produce braille.