#Accessible PDF Solutions
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shawnjordison · 1 year ago
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Canva PDFs are not accessible
Explore the challenges of Canva PDFs being inaccessible to those with disabilities, and discover the secret tip to make them accessible. Watch step-by-step video guides on how to tackle common issues, such as reading order and tagging.
This post aims to explore how Canva PDFs are not accessible to people with disabilities. It seems like such a basic need at this point for any modern website to allow for exporting with a structure in place. This simply is not the case for Canva PDFs. Would you rather just have me make your Canva doc exports accessible for you? Get accessible Documents Now Video Overview of the Problem The…
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sthrena · 1 month ago
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I don't want to download your app, fuck you.
I don't want to start free trial, uck you!
I don't want to sign up to your subscription service fuck you fuck you fuck you
I want to make you eat soup with 5 pounds of hair in it. Fuck you.
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andrewleousa · 1 year ago
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Get High-quality Document Accessibility Solutions to Make them User-Friendly
PDF is the primary document format opted for by a majority of businesses and corporations. Let Damco’s accessibility experts assess your PDFs and convert them into accessible documents. Ensure the accessibility of your PDFs for individuals with disabilities through our accessible document services.
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adasitecompliance · 1 year ago
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Accessibility Experts
Learn how to create inclusive and compliant PDF documents with our ultimate guide on PDF accessibility best practices!
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aurorasulphur · 11 months ago
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Disclaimer: none of these answers are official, and may not work for your particular use case. If there is a specific feature that an unofficial app had that you don't know how to replicate on the AO3, let me know in the notes and we might can crowdsource a solution.
A lot of people used the Archive Reader app to access stories on Archive of Our Own, and have been upset that the app is now charging to read longer than an hour a day. AO3 (and its parent organization, the OTW) has made it extremely clear in recent days that this app is unofficial and that there *is* no official app. They encourage people to use the website.
However, there are MANY reasons you might want an app, and in a bunch of those cases, there are ways to do those things without having to provide your login information to a random person running an app. Here is a round-up of solutions to the most common reasons I've seen people give for wanting an app instead of the plain AO3 website.
These solutions are based on the following assumptions:
You know what Archive of Our Own is
You often or primarily access it through a mobile device running iOS or Android
You understand what a browser is
You understand what a browser bookmark is
You understand what a site skin is
Edits:
Edited to clarify that you must be logged in to use custom site skins
Edited to add more tips and tricks from the reblogs
Edited to add new entry about notifications/emails
Edited to add new entry about reading statistics and the tracking thereof
I need a widget on my phone's homescreen, not just a browser bookmark.
You can do this with any website, not just AO3! Instructions here: https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/
I need Dark Mode.
AO3 has a default site skin for Dark Mode, it's just called Reversi. Find it here, or at the bottom of any page on the website. https://archiveofourown.org/skins/929/
If you'd like Dark Mode on your whole browser (and you're on Android), sorrelchestnut has advice here: https://www.tumblr.com/sorrelchestnut/737869282153775104/if-you-want-dark-mode-and-dont-want-to-mess
I need to be able to read stories when I don't have internet.
Every work on the AO3 has a download button, so you can click on that and download the story for offline reading in the ereader app of your choice. More info on how to do that is in the AO3 FAQs: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/downloading-fanworks?language_id=en#accesslater
I need to be able to change the text size of the website itself.
If you have an AO3 account (and you should!!) you can do this with a personalized site skin! There is a simple tutorial here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3skin/667284237718798336/i-have-a-request-if-you-dont-mind-could-you
I need to be able to change the text size in downloaded stories.
My personal recommendation: Don't download in PDF format. All the other formats you can download in can scale the text size up and down, assuming you open the work in the correct app. For me, I download works in EPUB format and read them on the built-in Books app on my iPhone. I hear good things about Moon Reader on Android as well.
I need to be able to replace Y/N in fics with an actual name.
ElectricAlice has a bookmarklet for that here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34796935
I need to be able to save specific tags and not have to search them up every time.
If you have an AO3 account (which you definitely should) then you can favorite up to 20 tags which will appear on the landing page. The AO3 FAQ explains how that works: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tags?language_id=en#favtag
I need to be able to save specific filters and be able to apply them to any tag.
Reisling's beautiful bookmarklet has you covered: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33825019
I need to be able to permanently hide certain tags.
The best option is adding this to your site skin. (Must be logged in.) Instructions here: https://www.tumblr.com/ao3css/719667033634160640/how-to-permanently-filter-out-certain-tags-on-ao3
I also hear things about the AO3 Enhancements extension (just for Android/desktop, sorry iOS folks): https://www.tumblr.com/emotionalsupportrats/686787582579851265/browser-extension-everyone-on-ao3-should-know
I need it to save my place on the page and not reload.
This is really mostly a browser error--Firefox on iOS does this to me A LOT. Your best bet is to download the work and read it in an ereader app. A lot of people also will make an ao3 bookmark and write in the notes section which part they were at, but that assumes you aren't falling asleep while reading. (Which is the main reason I have this issue, lol.) For more info on bookmarks, see the FAQ: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/bookmarks?language_id=en#whatisbookmark
I need it to keep track of which stories I've already read/opened/kudos'd.
If you have an account (which you should) then the "My History" page keeps track of every fic you've ever clicked on. No, it isn't searchable or sortable, but it does exist. For fics you've kudos'd, I have yet to find a solution for iOS. For desktop or Android, you can use this excellent userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5835-ao3-kudosed-and-seen-history
@the-sleepy-archivist and @inkandarsenic have a solution for iOS here to use userscripts: https://www.tumblr.com/the-sleepy-archivist/737895174683885568/this-is-a-great-guide-one-thing-i-can-help-with and https://www.tumblr.com/inkandarsenic/737827438571192320/the-user-scripts-will-also-work-on-ios-there-are
I need an app because the website's search is terrible.
(I genuinely don't understand this one but I have seen it multiple times so on the list it goes!!) The search bar at the top of the screen is a keyword search. If you'd rather search within a specific field (like title or tag) then you'll want to click on the word "search" at the top of the screen and select Work Search or Tag Search. To search users, use People Search. To search Bookmarks, use Bookmark Search. (If this is you, please tell me what the heck you mean by "search is bad" and how an app helped with this.)
I need to be able to sort stories by date posted/number of bookmarks/alphabetical/etc.
You can do this using the filters sidebar. Pick a tag you want to filter on (like a fandom, character, or relationship) and then click on the "Filters" button. The sidebar will pop out and you can sort and filter on a boggling array of specifics. A good filtering guide: https://www.tumblr.com/saurons-pr-department/718665516093472768/if-there-is-something-you-dont-want-to-see-in
I need to be able to mark stories to read later.
AO3 has this feature built in! If you have an account (which you should) there is a "Mark for Later" option on every work.
Edit: Thispersonishuman reminded me that History and Mark For Later can be disabled, so if you're not seeing the Mark for Later option, check your settings.
I need to be able to listen to stories using text-to-speech.
Microsoft Edge web browser has a built in text to speech function. Supposedly it works on both iOS and Android, but I have not personally tested that. iOS also has a native accessibility feature in settings for text to speech that will work on the Books app, so I assume Android has a similar functionality. A bunch of people in the reblogs have more in-depth Android recommendations here: https://www.tumblr.com/protect-namine/737957194510794752/seconding-voice-aloud-on-android-for-tts-my, https://www.tumblr.com/smallercommand/737884523093704704/i-use-voice-for-tts-on-android-its-got-some, and https://www.tumblr.com/doitninetimes/737869463749263360/for-text-to-speech-on-android-you-can-also-check
I need to have in-app notifications for updates/I can't ever find story updates in among the rest of my emails/checking my email stresses me out.
Set up a separate email address using a free service like gmail, and use that email address JUST for AO3. Then the only emails in that inbox will be your story updates. I use Apple's Mail application for all my inboxes, but it's very easy to use the Gmail app instead, and you could log in to JUST the ao3 email and set it to notify for every email.
(Also as a general PSA: don't use your work, school, or military email as your AO3 email. Just don't.)
I want statistics like how many hours I spent reading, how many words I read, what my most read tags were, stuff like that.
So we've finally hit something that isn't easy and that requires a hell of a lot of manual work. Short version: AO3 does not track this data because they don't want to. (Mostly due to privacy concerns.) The lack of this tracking is a feature, not a bug. You can crunch these numbers yourself, but it will take a hell of a lot more effort, and it's something I personally found is not worth the effort the couple of times I have tried to crunch those numbers. If you are willing to download your history to an actual computer (not a tablet or chromebook) using Calibre, you can get a rough idea of your most popular tags via their tag browser, but it won't play nice with typos synned to a Common Tag (Canonical Tag/filterable tag) like ao3 does. (If anyone has used an app that gave you stats on this, please let me know in reblogs/replies/via ask how that worked because I am very curious.)
I need an app because <other reason>.
The AO3 Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ might cover your use case: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/unofficial-browser-tools?language_id=en If not, give a shout and we'll see what other tumblr users suggest!
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sindar-princeling · 3 months ago
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LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ
Hello everyone!
Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)
What is LOTR Newsletter?
I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.
When does it take place?
Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.
From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.
The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.
Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?
We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)
How do I subscribe?
Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.
For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.
For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!
The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!
In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!
If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.
Anything else I should know?
Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!
(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)
See you on September 15th!
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2soulscollide · 5 months ago
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Shuffling Ideas - a free game for writers
Hello hello, it's me, Rach! And today I’m bringing another... FREEBIE!
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Are you looking for fun ways to brainstorm ideas? I have the solution right here (and it's free!)
Shuffling Ideas is a creative card game designed to be versatile and can be enjoyed both solo and in a group setting. When playing solo, you can use the cards to challenge your creativity, overcome writer’s block, or simply have fun concocting new and exciting plots. It’s a fun way to practice your writing skills and let your imagination run wild with over 1 million different plot combinations at your disposal. So, whether you’re in the mood for some quiet writing time or looking to brainstorm story ideas, Shuffling Ideas is the perfect go-to.
You’ll receive a PDF file ready for download, ensuring instant access to the game. No waiting, no shipping fees!
With 22 pages of content, you have the flexibility to print only the 10 pages required for the card fronts, saving you ink and paper
Over 1 million different plot combinations are possible, ensuring that no two writing sessions are ever the same.
So, if you're ready to have fun while unlocking your creative side, grab your freebie now and get started! 
Oh, and don’t forget to tag your creative buddies who would love this and spread the word!
Get it here!!
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copperbadge · 6 months ago
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Amateur Translation Programs
So I had a lot of imaginative and informative responses to my post about looking for an amateur translation program -- something where I could load in a foreign language and it would insert a box where I could add a translation every-other-line. The idea was that this way I could practice translation with more advanced texts, and texts I chose, and thus move away from Duolingo, which at this point is good for drilling and daily practice but not for more advanced learning.
I didn't find precisely what was needed but I did get some inspiration for further explanation, and I also learned that adding the term "glossing" (thank you @thewalrus-said) into my searches helped a great deal in terms of weeding out programs that were either "Let this AI translate for you" or just endless promotional links for Babbel and Duolingo and such. I thought I'd collect up the suggestions and post them here; at the end I'm including my best swing at designing what I wanted, and why it doesn't work yet.
Suggestion one, from many people, was various ways to generate a page that is simply fixed Italian text with space underneath each line to add in a translation. This is pretty simple as a process and there are sites that will do it for you, such as this one that @ame-kage suggested. However, most of these don't allow for movement in the Italian text, and many produce a PDF which you would need to print out in order to write on unless you're willing to open it in Acrobat (and deal with Acrobat). A good solution for some but not what I'm looking for purely because I'm trying to make this super frictionless so that (knowing myself as I do) I will actually do it.
I did find this version interesting, suggested by @drivemetogeek: Have one word doc saved as your "template" doc and set the line spacing as 2.0 or higher. Select your text from source and paste it into the template doc as text-only. Ctrl a, ctrl c to select all and copy, then open a new document and "paste special" as picture. Right click and set the "wrap text" as behind text. Now you have a document where you can, basically, type over the existing text because it's the background of the page. This seems like the most frictionless version, because you could set up a bunch of them ahead of time. If you wanted to move between desktop and mobile, however, you'd need to ensure that the pasted image was fairly narrow so that you don't have to sideways-scroll.
Relatedly, people suggested generating a document that is simply the Italian text with empty space beneath it for typing in of the translation. This can be done either semi-automated, using a macro or a language like Python, or find-and-replace on, say, the stops at the ends of sentences. It basically outputs the same as above but with a more digitally accessible format, without any more effort than above. If you were to do this in Google Sheets you could also fix the column width so that it didn't do anything weird when you opened it on your phone. But it is still very friction-y, and does not allow for easy shifting of the Italian as needed. There's high probability of the translation breaking weirdly across the page. Still a top option in terms of simplicity and access.
@smokeandholograms suggested another variation illustrated here where essentially you're converting the text to a series of tables, with each paragraph a row, and an empty cell next to it for the translation. I might play around more with this one eventually, since I think I could possibly make it a three-column and put the Italian in one, the translation in the next, and the auto-translate to let me know where I might be slipping in the third. (Not that I trust auto-translate but comparing a hand translation to an auto translation can be useful in terms of working out when I've messed up the way a tense or mood is read. I tend to read indirect verbs as automatically imperative because I'm a weirdo.)
@wynjara linked to an add-in for Word specifically designed for translators, known as TransTools; this appears to employ a macro to do the same thing, though it does have a format where you can place the translation next to each sentence directly rather than in a separate cell. The full suite of tools is only $45 which is reasonable for my budget, but for what I need I think I could also just create the macro.
Using LaTeX as a tool specially designed for glossing was an option on offer, but I don't know enough about LaTeX to figure out the pros of this one, which is in itself the major con -- there's a learning curve that I think varies widely by person but for me is unfortunately a wall. It came out of a discussion on Reddit about trying to find something like what I want; also in that discussion is a link to a code generator that allows you to…do something…to the initial language, but it's not entirely clear to me (I'm sure it's clear to people who understand coding) what you would then do with it that would allow it to be output in the way I'm hoping for. Like, I could turn a paragraph of text into HTML, I understand that far, but any Italian I find is already on a website.
Moving more into apps that might work, Redditors on the LaTeX discussion suggested SIL Fieldworks, which is a professional language tech tool. Fieldworks isn't a program I'd previously encountered but much as with the ones I had, it looks like the learning curve is fairly steep and it is definitely overkill generally for what I need, though it might also harbor within it the thing I want. It is free, so I may download and play around with it.
@brightwanderer suggested using note-taking or "whiteboard" apps such as Freeform or Nebo; these are generally a kind of "infinite canvas" in which you can drop objects, text boxes, or handwriting. I don't know that Freeform would be measurably different to just using Word and a macro, since I'd still have to input/format all the text and then be stuck with the same "fixed text" setup -- and it's also iOS only -- but for some folks it might be more helpful. Nebo is a similar infinite-canvas with unfortunately the same issues, though on the plus it's available for Android, which is where most of my mobile property resides.
@bloodbright suggested that I was looking for a CAT tool, a professional translation tool mainly used by translators working in the field. This was a concept I'd encountered, but I hadn't found a good starting place. They suggested Smartcat and OmegaT. Smartcat bills itself as an AI translation platform and is HARD pushing the "don't translate it yourself, hire a translator or let AI do it" angle, so it's difficult to tell what it offers in terms of actual tools for translators, and it's also cagey about pricing, so I can't really evaluate it. OmegaT is free and gives off big "some weirdo homebrewed this in their basement" vibe (which I am here for) but I also recognized it from screengrabs that were the reason I veered away from professional-grade software: it looked too complex. Realistically, the major downside of OmegaT is that I don't think I can put it on my phone. One thing I did find interesting is that once you translate a portion of the text, the original language goes away, though I assume you can turn that off if needed. I do kind of like that because it means my distractable brain is looking at Less Stuff.
So where did I end up?
Well, it looked like I was going to have to try a homebrew myself. I had the idea of trying some of the initial suggestions but in reverse -- designing a document where every other line was a single-cell table fixed to the page. You could paste in the Italian, which would wrap around the cells, and then enter the English in the cells.
You can fix a table in place in Google Docs -- you click on the table, then under Table > Style select Wrap Text, Both Sides, and Fix On Page. Getting the whole page set up is a little labor intensive but once you did that, you could just save it as a template and make a duplicate of it each time. And this actually works….on desktop.
Unfortunately, if you open it in the mobile Docs app, the app can't handle the fixed tables and automatically moves them all to after the text that's been pasted in. I tried redesigning it so that it's a table within a table -- one for the Italian, then within that a series of them for the English -- but when you nest a table in Google Docs, it doesn't let you fix the second table in place. And you are also still dealing with the wrap issue, although you can resize the page and add a large right-hand margin as a kludge of a fix for that.
You can build this same kind of document in Word, so I tried building one in Word and then uploading it to Drive, but when you open the Word file in Docs (or in Microsoft Word for Android), it still strips the fixed positioning -- there's just some functionality missing from both apps that doesn't allow them to handle fixed-position tables.
So, the design is sound, just not the final execution. If I could program an app, I could probably remedy the issues with it -- it's simply a series of text boxes nested inside one another with different formatting. I would imagine that's relatively basic to set up, although given that neither Docs nor Word can handle fixed tables in mobile, perhaps I've stumbled on a much bigger problem that everyone is ignoring because nobody actually needs or wants fixed tables in mobile. :D
Experimentation is ongoing, anyway. I might simply have to resign myself to the fact that my translation study is going to have to be in front of a computer, which might be for the best anyway when I inevitably want to compare my translation to an auto-translate to see where I might have read something wrong.
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cripplecharacters · 5 months ago
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Hello! I was researching face paralysis and I've read that in some cases (for example, Moebius syndrome), people are unable to move their eyelids, which means being unable to squint, or even fully close their eyes. I've been wondering how does that affect eyesight? As far as I'm aware, blinking (or just closing your eyes in general) is very important to keep your eyes moisturized and clean. How do paralyzed people deal with it? Do they manually moisturize their eyes every few minutes (or less often? I'm not sure, perhaps eyedrops are more effective than quick blinks and can keep your eyes moisturized for longer periods of time?) Do their eyes become more sensitive and end up needing extra protection? Or maybe they don't manage it at all (because it's ineffective, tiresome, etc) and just eventually become blind due to eye dryness and damage? I've been trying to find answers to this question, but I only found reddit posts about hypothetical situations like "what if you suddenly stopped blinking?!!".
Hi!:-) Interesting question!
Some people do have issues blinking due to facial paralysis, though even in Möbius syndrome not everyone does. There's also some differences between voluntary eye closure and involuntary blinking reflex in facial palsy; some people can do both, some cannot do either, and some can only do one but not the other. In some kinds of paralysis the muscles can actually spasm involuntarily, and for some people it involves the eyelids. I have a problem with that on the effected side of my face, I have very poor voluntary eyelid control, but my eyelid there will sometimes half-blink for me in addition to the regular blink reflex.
The most common solution for the completely absent blink reflex I know of is applying eye drops, and otherwise protecting the eyes from the sun via hats or sunglasses. There are also some devices that help with dryness, such as punctal plugs, or special tapes to close the eyelids for sleeping purposes. For more solutions, you can check out Facial Palsy UK's page on dry eyes!
How often someone might need to use their eye drops will depend on both their personal needs and what kind of drops they're using, but the most common frequency I've seen is a few times a day. Environmental factors are also a thing here (and apply the same way as they do for everyone else, wind = gets drier faster).
If someone is unable to moisturize their eyes in any way, the cornea will eventually get damaged (in Möbius syndrome it's often corneal ulcers), which leads to sight loss over time. It can also be painful (if the person can feel pain in the eyes). For people with milder blinking issues, the symptoms could be limited to irritation with no vision changes.
In general, legal blindness due to facial paralysis is absolutely possible but uncommon. Based on this PDF from Mobius Syndrome Foundation, most people with MS won't reach legal blindness (and MS is, if I had to guess, the type of facial paralysis with the highest % of that). Of course, it's important to take into account that this statistic was made in the US and it can look very differently for people in other parts of the world who might have much less access to healthcare.
Thanks for the ask!:-)
mod Sasza
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shawnjordison · 1 year ago
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Making a PDF Accessible: Episode 4 |Glendale College
Struggling with making your PDFs accessible? Learn about common challenges and effective solutions in this blog post. #AccessiblePDFs #PDFAccessibility #AccessibilityChallenges #AccessibilitySolutions
Welcome to episode four on making college PDFs accessible. Today, we focus on Glendale Community College’s Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSPS) newsletter for summer 2023. Video Guide In case you missed them, here are Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3 in our Making Accessible PDFs: Community College Series. Key Takeaways From This Episode This document was originally made in Canva.…
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loser-female · 1 year ago
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Math masterpost!
So you want to learn math. Good. Math is amazing. I studied physics for two years and I miss it SO MUCH. Learning math isn't just cool, but it's a great way to improve skills such as:
Resilience: sometimes you will get stuck for a while on a problem - this is absolutely normal for college-level problems. You won't start from here though;
Self confidence: mastering a subject known to be difficult is fun;
Problem solving: you will be less likely to just sit down and do nothing if something comes up in your life, you will be able to try to find a solution.
It will change your approach to failure as you will become more flexible in your thinking.
Unfortunately most people never learn how to properly study math. We all probably know how to study a book over humanities. We start by reading the material, then we take notes of the keypoints. But this method doesn't work with math, and math teachers often don't really know either.
For the basics I've made this post here. To sum it up:
Please don't start with "but i suck at it". Because then your brain will actually prevent you from learning (self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?);
Realise that you need to master one topic before covering the next one or you won't be able to progress;
Really, the methods you use for things like literature or psychology or whatever won't work
Now I'm not a genius, I always was and I always be a terrible student. I have adhd, depression and chronic pain, all of which add a difficulty layer with learning.
I feel like most people fail because of the first point. I've seen this with people I've tutored IRL, people I try to fix their pc... Don't be the person that gives up before trying because no one likes that. Just don't. Remember that you are learning on your own and no one is going to grade your excercises. Now take that and make a poster out of iy.
Now, resources Where To Find The Stuff.
Khan Academy. I didn't follow this courses becuase well, university, physics, but everyone references them.
Professor Leonard
The Math Sorcerer
3b1b (curiosities in math)
Vsauce2 (fun)
numberphile (this for understanding math memes)
r/learnmath resources are great!
A great study method
Proofs? Proofs.
A 3 page document on learning math (but it's cool)
Terry Tao's famous post "there is more in mathematics about rigour and proofs"
Remember that, even if you don't like a specific youtuber, source or anything it has been a while since college and high school teachers started to upload their own material. Generally, looking for like "calculus pdf" will give you a lot of resources. Youtube is full of university courses of every kind and it's so good to access all of this knowledge for free. I cannot recommend you anything regarding textbooks because I still have my high school one. Also yes, i've used the Rudin as a complementary textbook in university but that's a bit too much.
I really, really want to emphasize the mentality part. Leaning formula is useless if you feel like garbage because you weren't able to solve the first exercise you picked up after a decade not doing anything.
My personal and sparce advice:
Unless you have dyscalculia don't use the calculator. I know, I KNOW. But this "lazyness" will make everything 10 times more difficult.
Beware about overlearning. Basically, when you solve everything at the first attempt and you keep doing the same thing over and over because it feels good, but the truth is that you are wasting time. This is the time to move forward.
Try to differentiate between a knowledge error(did I actually study the subject?), a conceptual error (did I understand the material), or a mere calculation/distraction error (fo example a missing sign, writing the wrong thing etc)
Try to solve the problems in different ways if you can.
After a certain time, It will be useful to review things done in the past, (ref: spaced repetition method).
Write everything down. Reasonings, steps etc. It will be easier for you to review them.
This posts keep crashing so I have to call it quits now.
but:
have fun
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manonamora-if · 7 months ago
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Currently happening on itch:
For the third year running, TTRPGs for Trans Rights is back—this time, benefitting LGBTQ+ folks in West Virginia and Appalachia. Often, queer and trans folks in these rural areas get forgotten or written off, trapped by gerrymandering and circumstance. But moving isn't an option for every person living in a state that is legislating against them, and so, we fundraise!
All proceeds from this bundle (after fees) will be donated to Project Rainbow - West Virginia's only LGBTQ+ shelter, and an advocacy center that helps queer and trans people throughout Appalachia.
Project Rainbow is a nonprofit organization based in Monongalia County, West Virginia. Since its inception, the project has been curated to serve unsheltered LGBTQ+ individuals to help them better navigate the housing system safely and compassionately. Project Rainbow has opened The Rainbow House in an effort to serve this community and meet this goal. Although the shelter is our community's most urgent and immediate need, Project Rainbow recognizes that there is far more work to be done. They serve as advocates for the individuals we serve, and the Appalachian LGBTQ+ community as a whole. They also work closely with partners in the housing system, health and mental health care systems to not only find solutions for their guests but to make these systems themselves more accessible for their target population.
Previous bundles have benefitted trans-centered organizations in Florida and Texas. For more information about the Trans Rights Bundle project, or to get in touch with the organizers, visit our website: https://transrightsbundle.space
To access contributions from our publishing partners off of itch.io, please take a moment to fill out this form: https://forms.gle/kufKnqBAaaJxcizp7
Paizo Inc. is offering PDF copies of Pathfinder Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall to all backers of this charity bundle. Note: Paizo grants these PDFs through paizo.com, so you will need to provide an email account associated with a paizo.com account in order to receive this reward.
If you  are a larger publisher who uses their own platform to distribute games, please email [email protected] [email protected] or DM me on twitter if you would like to participate in the bundle. We're happy to work with you to figure out a method for you to be a part of this
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sandinthepipes · 10 months ago
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Hello fellow dyslexic/adhd/others who would like to enjoy fanfics through their ears, I just spent the entire day testing android apps to find one that doesn’t suck as much.
TL;DR - these two T2S, Audify
I feel like I need to share this because 90% the apps don’t even allow a web page as a source, let alone get past the log in page, and I cant be the only one who doesn’t want to download every single fic.
“Oh, but doesn’t android have a built-in text-to-speech function in the accessibility settings?” I hear you ask. Yes, but it sucks ass very badly. Firstly it only reads in the system language, so it doesn’t really work. Second, you need to highlight all that you want it to read, and seeing that I read a minimum of 15k words in a sitting, I’m not gonna do that.
Also I’m broke, I imagine you are too, but even if I wasn’t I’m not paying for this, if I did I wouldn’t even be supporting a human being, so no.
I’ll immediately break your trust with the first point, but it’s what I’ve been doing until now, and now that I know what the android mobile experience is like, I feel the need to include this. The best solution I’ve had so far (which works wonders, let me tell you) is letting Siri read them on the iPad. It’s only doable when I’m at home and it’s still an apple product, so that’s why I began the research. However the positive points are INCREDIBLE so I’m going to ads it to the list because I said so.
First of all it’s built-in and SO EASY to access, you literally just swipe with two fingers and it stars to read. It reads the punctuation, you might think that’s a given and so did I, but no. A question sounds like a question, an exclamation point does why its supposed to do, short sentences sound what they’re supposed to sound like. In apparently all the apps ever created, you won’t find any of it, just flat, monotone voices with flat little pauses. Overall excellent experience 10/10.
Cons: it’s on apple, I consider apple the same as Disney, I would love to not give them more money so that they can make the market increasingly worse. Every now and then a system update will fuck with the tts function and it will be unusable for a while. Sometimes it doesn’t like the text format on some fics. It’s not portable.
Now that we got that out of the way let us get to the meet.
Speechify - it sucks bad. At least the free version, but seen as it costs almost 10€ a month I’m not even going to consider the premium version. Fuck that. You can’t increase the speed, and as somebody who hasn’t watched a single YouTube video on normal speed since they added the function I can’t do that, too slow, I forgot what we were talking about once we get to the end of the sentence. Also you can only use those weird very robotic voices, and they’re not even that many. Don’t recommend. I felt like I had to include it since it was one of the few who allowed browser navigation and well, it’s speechify. Also you can’t t have saved more than 3 “files” per time. Doesn’t have sleep mode.
T2S - cute. It works. Again, no emotions, but it reads what it has to, nice voice selections, easy to use. The premium version adds literally nothing, they’re a good app, what they have, they give. Also you can customise the interface colour if you want. Has the sleep mode. - EDIT: this app allows you to have multiple tabs open at the same time, unlike Audify. - EDIT EDIT: it's waaay better than Audify with pdf files.
Audify - works exactly the same as T2S, but it saves the history and has a bit more customisation for how it reads and what it reads (which you don’t really need for ao3, but if you wanted to read, say, Wikipedia with all the notes and stuff, now you know). Has the sleep mode. - EDIT: the double tap to start reading works slightly better than T2S on websites with weird formatting. But unlike T2S you can only have one tab open - EDIT EDIT: will turn your pdf file into text and will show you just text. If you had things like images or columns fucks for you.
That’s all folks. Now go and be free of your reading impediment, or be free in your multitasking, or whatever you want to do. I’m done, I’ve given my datas to all kinds of shady apps, I need to go do damage control
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adasitecompliance · 1 year ago
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Create Accessible PDFs
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lefresne · 2 years ago
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What I have never understood about Galahad is Why does he need to be Lancelot's son? Why does Galahad need to be born by Rape? And Why and HOW on earth can Elaine be the Grail Bearer and still commit an obvious sin?
(tw for issues related to rape)
Oh anon, this is one of the great mysteries of Arthuriana. Even more puzzling is the fact that by the end of the twelfth-century there already was a Grail hero: Perceval! In fact, early prose romances, building on Chrétien’s poem, will keep Perceval as Grail hero (ie. The Perlesvaus and the Didot-Perceval, an early prose cycle that includes a prehistory of the Grail, a prose Grail Quest, and a version of the Mort), but for some reason by the 1230s, a few significant developments have occurred: Lancelot’s lineage is ‘attached’ to Joseph of Arimathea’s and the name ‘Galahad’ is introduced for the first time. The best essay on the subject is Emmanuèle Baumgartner’s chapter in The Lancelot Grail Cycle: Text and Transformation, ‘From Lancelot to Galahad: The Stakes of Filiation’. Broadly, it argues that the introduction of the character of Galahad is answering to both narrative and textual issues: principally, how to reconcile widely divergent textual traditions that one ‘inherits’ in order to produce a single, coherent ‘cycle’. The medieval ‘cycle’ is itself responding to a desire for ‘total’ encyclopaedic knowledge of Arthurian history, and this desire for accumulating a frankly disorientating amount of textual material was in fact very characteristic of the period. As to why is has to be Lancelot specifically, it might just have to do with the fact that the prior textual sources establish him as the 'best' knight so it would have been prestigious to have him as a father. Unfortunately, within the ideological framework outlined in earlier Grail narratives (notably its emphasis on chastity), Lancelot must be ‘sacrificed’, punished, and violated in order for these disparate textual elements to ‘fit’. He cannot be the Grail hero because of his prior textual inheritance, the only ‘solution’ (and I am putting HUGE quotation marks here) is to fall back on a trope common the chivalric romance which is that narrative progresses along the same lines as heterosexual reproduction (which is itself a fantasy but that’s for another time YIKES). The character of Lancelot has to be ‘rewritten’ into Galahad (and this is a trope that is super prevalent throughout the PL and Vulgate Cycle, all Lancelot’s ancestors have the same names and seem to be like weird, uncanny echoes of each other). In other words, if you're thinking that the introduction of Galahad is incoherent, it's because it is - it's literally trying to make things that were not initially thought as fitting together, fit together through re-writing / over-writing.
I have the PDF of the chapter if you do not have institutional access, and I might be able to find a way to get it to you (hint hint nudge nudge). 
As for Elaine’s final fate, she is deemed unworthy of continuing to bear the Grail, and retires to a convent, and then dies. She does, however, briefly voice her resentment towards her father as she considers herself ‘diminished’ now that she is no longer a virgin (yikes).  
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bsdndprplplld · 1 year ago
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tips for studying math part 2:
studying for an exam but the course is super boring and you don't care about it at all, you just want to pass
start by making a list of topics that were covered in lectures and classes. you can try to sort them by priority, maybe the professor said things like "this won't be on the exam" or "this is super important, you all must learn it", but that's not always possible, especially if you never showed up in class. instead, you can make a list of skills that you should acquire, based on what you did in classes and by looking at the past papers. for example, when I was studying for the statistics exam, my list of skills included things such as calculating the maximum likelihood estimators, confidence intervals, p-values, etc.
normally it is recommended to take studying the theory seriously, read the proofs, come up with examples, you name it, but we don't care about this course so obviously we are not going to do that. after familiarizing yourself with the definitions, skim through the lecture notes/slides/your friend's notes and try to classify the theorems into actionable vs non-actionable ones. the actionable ones tell you directly how to calculate something or at least that you can do it. the stokes theorem or the pappus centroid theorem – thore are really good examples of that. they are the most important, because chances are you used them a lot in class and they easily create exam problems. the non-actionable theorems tell you about properties of objects, but they don't really do anything if you don't care about the subject. you should know them of course, sometimes it is expected to say something like "we know that [...] because the assumptions of the theorem [...] are satisfied". but the general rule of thumb is that you should focus on the actionable theorems first.
now the problem practice. if you did a lot of problems in class and you have access to past papers, then it is pretty easy to determine how similar those two are. if the exercises covered in class are similar to those from past exam papers, then the next step is obvious: solve the exercises first, then work on the past papers, and you should be fine. but this is not always the case, sometimes the classes do not sufficiently prepare you for the exam and then what you do is google "[subject] exercises/problems with solutions pdf". there is a lof of stuff like this online, especially if the course is on something that everybody has to go through, for instance linear algebra, real and complex analysis, group theory, or general topology. if your university offers free access to textbooks (mine does, we have online access to some books from springer for example) then you can search again "[subject] exercises/problems with solutions". of course there is the unethical option, but I do not recommend stealing books from libgen by searching the same phrase there. once you got your pdfs and books, solve the problems that kinda look like those from the past papers.
if there is a topic that you just don't get and it would take you hours to go through it, skip it. learn the basics, study the solutions of some exercises related to it, but if it doesn't go well, you can go back to it after you finish the easy stuff. it is more efficient to learn five topics during that time than to get stuck on one. the same goes for topics that were covered in lectures but do not show up on the past papers. if you don't have access to the past papers you gotta trust your intuition on whether the topic looks examable or not. sometimes it can go wrong, in particular when you completely ignored the course's existence, but if you cannot find any exercises that would match that topic, then you can skip it and possibly come back later. always start with what comes up the most frequently on exams and go towards what seems the most obscure. if your professor is a nice person, you can ask them what you should focus on and what to do to prepare, that can save a lot of time and stress.
talk to the people who already took the course. ask them what to expect – does the professor expect your solutions to be super precise and cuts your points in half for computation errors or maybe saying that the answer follows from the theorem X gets the job done? normally this wouldn't be necessary (although it is always useful to know these things) because when you care about the course you are probably able to give very nice solutions to everything or at least that's your goal. but this time, if many people tell you that the professor accepts hand-wavey answers, during the exam your tactic is to write something for every question and maybe you'll score some extra points from the topics you didn't have time to study in depth.
alright, that should do it, this is the strategy that worked for me. of course some of those work also in courses that one does care about, but the key here is to reduce effort and time put into studying while still maximizing the chances of success. this is how I passed statistics and differential equations after studying for maybe two days before each exam and not attending any lectures before. hope this helps and of course, feel free to add yours!
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