Need a accessible app for reading PDF's on my Mac

By Cliff, 5 February, 2013

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Hi guys! I have a bunch of usermanuals I would like to read for my music production hardware, and they are of course in PDF. I've tried Adobe reader, but it doesn't seem to work that well with VoiceOver, which I thought was wierd, because it worked so fine with my Windows screenreader before I switched to Mac. So far my experience with Mac has been nothing but great, but this issue with reading PDF is causing me a headache. I've talked to some other VO users, and the only thing they could tell me, was they have had rather bad experience with reading PDF's on a Mac, and they told me to have my old Windows computer ready for action when I need to read a PDF... So my question is; are there any accessible ways to read PDF's on Mac or do I just have to settle with having to pull my Windows computer out of the closet every time I need to read PDF's? Thx in advance Cliff

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Comments

By Chris Bruinenberg on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Hi cliff. I have two suggestions. The first being, download ibooks on your iphone ipad or ipod touch. Transfer the pdf files to the device. Reading the pdf works great with the iphone. Another sollution is to download aby fine reader or docuscan plus.

By Isaac Hebert (not verified) on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Download Skim for Mac - PDF Reader and note-taker for scientific ... www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24590/skim Rating: 4.7 - 55 reviews - Free Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is also great for viewing any PDF file.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Isaac, is this an app that you have actually used and know to work well with VoiceOver, or is it simply a random app that you have found via Google?

By Nicholas Parsons on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Isaac, I'm also curious whether that app is accessible. Is there an entry for it in the Mac App Directory on AppleVis? PDF reading is one of the weaknesses on the Mac. I haven't found anything ideal. I mainly use Preview for text-based PDFs. I use DocuScan Plus or Nuance PDF Converter for image-based PDFs. I've heard a little about Adobe Digital Editions. Does anyone know what, if any, benefits this has over Preview?

By Cliff on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Hi guys and thanks for your suggestions! I talked to John at macfortheblind.com about this issue, and he also suggested Skim, so I guess it is pretty much accessible. I guess I will go ahead and download it and see if it works, but at the moment I just went with Chriss88s first suggestion and downloaded iBooks to my iPhone. Seems to be working fine, even though you don't have the option to flick right or left between sentences or paragrafs in the text. So you would either have to place the VO focus on the first sentence and do a two-finger-swipe down to get it to read the whole page, or you would have to move your finger in very tiny incroments downwards to hear the next sentence, wich can be pretty challenging. So in the long term, I will continue my search for accessible apps for reading PDF's on my Mac, starting with Skim. By the way, does anyone know if it's free or paid?

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, February 28, 2013 - 07:38

Last I checked skim was free and it's very easy to use. Good luck.

By Eric Davis on Saturday, March 28, 2015 - 07:38

The problem isn't reading as much as filling out the form. I just got a new job and part of the tasks is to fill out a form that is in PDF. I can read the text but am not able to fill out the edit fields on the form. Most everything else is working quite well and I don't want to go back to a P.C. Please give me some direction here.

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, March 28, 2015 - 07:38

There was pdf pen but tht app last I checked was so inaccessible it was worthlis. I contacted the devs about this last year with no progress beeing made.