Accessible PDF Viewer for Macbook Pro

By Jessica Karim, 23 August, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi everyone. I just upgraded to a macbook pro. I've found everything so far to be very accessible. However, I'm having 1 issue. I upgraded from a windows pc, where I used QRead for reading pdfs. Is there an accessible pdf reader for the mac? I'll mostly be reading large pdf textbooks, so I'll need something pretty powerful. All help is appreciated.
Thanks

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Comments

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

It's included with Mac OS (and iOS and iPadOS) and is shockingly competent. I prefer it to QRead in almost all situations. It can be a little sluggish with massive textbooks, but for the most part it's great. Well, at least it was back on Catalina with a 16-in MBP.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

Hi!

What about Speech Central? I know you still have to pay for it in the Mac app store. But, I think it's worth looking at.
I've used it a little on the Ipad, and I love it so far.

By Jessica Karim on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

I never even thought of the books app. I'll definitely give it a try. I'm running a mac pro with the M 1 chip, so hopefully it performs the same. Thank you.

I'll definitely take a look. Do you know if they offer a free trial? I don't really want to pay for something if I don't end up enjoying it.

By Labsii on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

Dawn, thanks for mentioning Speech Central.

As I am a developer of it I am not neutral, but in one thread on this site a user said that he started to use Speech Central for the Mac because he needed an accessible solution for PDFs, so I assume it is fair to say that it can work well in this use case.

Unfortunately Mac App Store doesn't have an option to offer free trials, it is either paid app or free app (with possible in-app purchases). The next problem is that the paid app cannot be converted to the free app with in-app purchases. I would prefer this model now (among other things I could offer the app for free to blind people only as on iOS) but as it was already set up years ago there's not much options aside from keep going as is.

The closest thing to trial would be to try it on your iOS device, while the user interface is written from the scratch for macOS, the layout structure is almost the same and for VoiceOver users I think they would look very similar aside that on macOS you have also elaborate menus available.

By Jessica Karim on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

Hi Jenna
I tried opening the pdf in iBooks. Every time I do that, it automatically opens in preview. I tried going into info and changing the default pdf viewer to iBooks, but it doesn't show up under the options. It might not be available in OS Big Sur. Either way, thanks for the suggestions.

By Greg Wocher on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

Hello,
I am not sure what the price is now but Flyingbee PDF reader is fairly accessible. There are a few unlabeled buttons when you open up a PDF but the text viewing area is very usable. I bought it on sale a while ago just to try it because PDF's is one of Macs shortcomings for accessibility. I tried opening up a PDF in Speech Central but it just opened up in preview. That also happened when opening up a PDF with the books app.

Greg Wocher

By Karina Velazquez on Friday, September 10, 2021 - 07:37

Does it also read the protected PDF documents? Those where in windows, JAWS only detects as the document was an image?