Preview your course materials using a screen reader to ensure the material is presented as you intend.

There are a number of screen readers available form various sources. They are built into operating systems, web browsers, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Office applications, and they can be added as browser extensions and applications installed on devices. While it is unreasonable to expect faculty to test their materials on all tools, they can be expected to preview materials to ensure the reader navigates as expected.

Screen readers on common systems:

  • In Microsoft Word (in Office 2019, 2021, and 365) the "Read Aloud" button is available on the "Review" tab; this commend will open a control to start and pause text-to-voice conversion of the document or selected text within the document.

    the read aloud button is on the review tab in Microsoft Word 

  • In Adobe Reader (for both Windows and Macintosh), the Read Out Loud can be activated with the command under the "View" menu.

    users activate read out loud under the view menu in Adobe Reader 

  • Microsoft Edge (on Mac) users can enable Read Aloud under the "Tools" menu; Edge allows users to select text to set the text to be read (and to set starting points).

    the read aloud command is available under the view menu in Microsoft Edge

  • Microsoft Edge (on PC) users can enable Read Aloud by 1) open the "three dots" settings menu, 2) open "More tools," then 3) enable 'Read aloud."

    enumerated directions for opening the read aloud tool in Microsoft Edge.


Last modified: Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 8:20 AM