ReadHear™ PC CDrom

Professional or Premium? (Comparison Chart)

At gh, we strive to constantly improve our software products by adding features that make reading DAISY and audio books a smoother, more convenient experience. With ReadHear™ PC Premium, all of these latest features are available to you.

New Features of Premium Edition

History Navigation

With all editions of ReadHear™, you can navigate by page, heading, paragraph, sentence, or word. This provides enough flexibility to easily navigate any book. However, with the Premium Edition, you are able to jump back and forward in history. This makes it extremely convenient to jump between spots in a book. For example, if you are reading a textbook and want to consult the Glossary, you can navigate to it by heading, and then go Back with the History immediately. Then, if you want to go back to the Glossary to look up another word, simply go Forward.

ePub and HTML Support

ReadHear™ PC Premium adds support for ePub and HTML formats, which allows readers to access an immense number of free books online in e-book libraries such as Project Gutenberg.

Zoomable User Interface

ReadHear™ makes it easy to resize text to make it easier to read. But what about the menus and sidebar? With Premium Edition, these can be resized as well (a great aid for low-vision users).

Additional Features

View the comparison chart to see which features are included in the Professional and Premium editions of ReadHear PC.

ReadHear™ PC—Reading With Ease

gh has developed a software reading system designed for reading NIMAS, DAISY Digital Talking Books, ePub/HTML, and plain text files (*.txt) while providing multiple sensory output. Whether you read with high contrast large text, recorded or synthesized speech, or Braille output to a refreshable display, ReadHear™ PC gives you access to the content you need!

• Read DAISY, NIMAS, Save As DAISY XML, Plain Text files, ePub, and HTML
• Select from six synthesized voices
• Read MathML-embedded books with enhanced navigation
• Adjust color settings for custom contrast
• Use word tracking to highlight word-by-word
• Zoom up to 16x with the ability to pan around the document
• Navigate to any part of a book with ease
• Set bookmarks and take notes

Accessible Electronic Media (AEM) is an exciting new approach to providing print-disabled readers with a paperless approach to gaining access to the content they need. Downloading electronic books has never been easier with companies like BookShare online. You can even join libraries like RFB&D and gain access to nearly 100,000 titles! Simply download or order your new book, load it on your computer, and open it in ReadHear™ to get a complete reading experience through multiple sensory inputs!

About ReadHear PC

ReadHear PC is a Section 508 compliant software player that is designed with accessibility as a priority. This software supports the following file formats:

• NIMAS
• Plain Text (.txt)
• DAISY 2.02
• ANSI-NISO (Z39.86-2002)
• DAISY/NISO 2005 (Z36.86-2005)
• ePub
• HTML

ReadHear PC provides people with disabilities access to information sources including large documents, textbooks, training manuals and publications. It also offers a variety of accessibility features for a fuller reading experience. These features include:

• Text-to-Speech functionality
• Text and user interface magnification
• Contrast enhancement
• Synchronized text highlighting

Features of ReadHear PC

ReadHear PC has many features that have been added to improve your reading experience. These features are listed below.

• Support for NIMAS 1.1 and DAISY/NISO 2005
• Support for MathML-enabled NIMAS and Digital Talking Books
• Additional navigation for escapable and skippable text
• Easier book import
• New navigation pane
• SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) support
• Roaming activation for greater portability
• Concurrent licensing for institutions
• Optimized for large books
• Page-by-page display
• Improved support for books on CD
• Revised keyboard shortcuts and support for multi-media keys
• New AT hardware support
• Continuous playback without focus
• Windows 7 compatible
• Automatic update checking
• Save As DAISY compatibility

Support for NIMAS 1.1 and DAISY/NISO 2005

The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) has been updated to version 1.1 and the DAISY/NISO Digital Talking Book specification has been updated to version 2005. For more information on the updated specifications, visit nimas.cast.org and www.daisy.org.

ReadHear fully supports both updated specifications, and utilizes new features available in both. Additionally, ReadHear enables the conversion from NIMAS files to DAISY/NISO 2005 books.
 

Support for MathML-enabled NIMAS and Digital Talking Books

One limitation of DAISY was support for math and science until the DAISY Consortium adopted the MathML in DAISY modular extension. Now you can get your math and science material in a DAISY format. ReadHear™ is the first DAISY DTB player that supports MathML.

ReadHear™ fully supports MathML-extended NIMAS and Digital Talking Books with character-by-character navigation, fully anti-aliased display, and up to 16x zoom.

Additional navigation for escapable and skippable text

Tired of having to listen to every bit of information on a page? Now, using ReadHear PC, you can skip the items you don't want to hear, such as page numbers, footnotes, and sidebars. Additionally, ReadHear PC now allows you to jump out of large items, such as tables, once you've found the information you're looking for. With these advanced navigation options, you are better able to listen to books as you want.

Easier book import

ReadHear PC has greatly improved the process of adding and importing books into your library. Now, importing a title is as easy as a click of a mouse, with nothing slowing you from getting to the information you want.

New navigation pane

For visual users, a navigation pane has been added along the left hand side of the player. This resizable pane allows for quick access to sections, bookmarks, pages, and indices. Additionally, the pane zooms along with the text, so you will always be able to access the content of the pane, regardless of your zoom preferences.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) support

Scalar Vector Graphics (SVG) is an image format that allows for crystal clear images, regardless of zoom. ReadHear PC fully supports SVG and you will see no image degradation of any SVG images in a document, no matter how high your zoom preferences are. At 16x, the images will be as crisp and clear as they are at 1x.

Roaming activation for greater portability

Want to use your ReadHear PC at work or school? Now you can take it with you! Product activation for ReadHear PC has been made easier, allowing users to move their ReadHear PC license from one computer to another with little hassle.

Concurrent licensing for institutions

For larger institutions, concurrent licensing is an affordable way to provide access to as many as possible at an affordable rate. Under this model, the number of purchased concurrent licenses determines the total number of licenses that can be active at the same time.

Optimized for large books

Extremely large books aren't a problem any more! From textbooks to encyclopedias, a large book will open quickly, navigating and processing at the same speed as smaller books. You will never have to wait to get access to the information you need.

Page-by-page display

ReadHear PC now displays each page of a book independently. This improvement allows for finer navigation control and puts users of high zoom settings in control of viewing a page. You will no longer get lost in a book when trying to view a magnified image.

Improved support for books on CD

As soon as you pop in a CD containing Digital Talking Books or NIMAS files, ReadHear PC will give you a list of all of the books on the disc, allowing you to immediately begin playing your books. Further, the ReadHear PC doesn't support just CDs—any removable media is treated the same way, whether it's a USB key or a removable hard drive.

Revised keyboard shortcuts and support for multi-media keys

The keyboard shortcuts have been updated to help laptop users more effectively use ReadHear PC. Additionally, the ReadHear PC now supports multimedia keys on keyboards, so you can play, pause, skip, and stop playback at any time with just the press of a key.

New AT hardware support

ReadHear PC now supports pedal controls, such as the "V-Pedal". This is in addition to the existing support of many types of AT hardware, ranging from Braille displays to head mice.

Continuous playback without focus

ReadHear PC no longer pauses playback when you switch to another program, allowing you to continue your playback while using your computer in other ways. When used in conjunction with the new support of multi-media keys, ReadHear PC now has unprecedented playback control.

For example, you can now edit a spreadsheet while listening to a Digital Talking Book, pausing and playing without ever switching back to ReadHear PC. ReadHear PC gives you access to your information the way you want!

Windows 7 compatible

With the upgrade of Microsoft Windows 7, many programs experienced compatibility issues—but not ReadHear PC. ReadHear PC is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, while still maintaining its existing compatibility with Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, and Vista.

Automatic update checking

ReadHear PC now regularly checks for updates so you will always have the most recent version available. The instant a ReadHear PC upgrade is made available, you will be notified and prompted to install the update.

Save As DAISY compatibility

Using ReadHear PC Premium edition, you can directly open any DAISY xml file produced by Microsoft Word's Save As DAISY Feature. For example, you can drag and drop the generated DAISY xml file into ReadHear, and it is immediately ready to be used.

Once the file is open in ReadHear PC, you can use its Save As feature, which will produce a full text only DAISY 3 book. Now, your custom DTB can be shared with anyone!