What Is Convenient OCR

One frequently encounters images which contain textual information while
browsing the web or performing other tasks on one's computer. The setup
screen of an application, or the menu of selections for a DVD movie very
often use Buttons and other onscreen controls which are labeled with
pictures of text instead of the actual text characters themselves. Many
Portable Document File (PDF) formatted documents also do not contain
accessible text. Instead, these .pdf documents contain images of pages.
In the past, this text could not be read using a screen reader.
Convenient OCR (Optical Character Recognition), first introduced in JAWS
13, enables you to access any image on the screen that includes text, or
recognize all of the text in a PDF document.

Using Convenient OCR

Convenient OCR is included in JAWS Layered keystrokes. Each keystroke is
composed of two "layers." Press JAWSKey+SPACEBAR to invoke the command
layer, then press the second keystroke to activate the command. In the
case of Convenient OCR commands, you will first press JAWSKey+SPACEBAR,
followed by O to activate the Convenient OCR command layer, then you
will press a specific letter to invoke different kinds of recognition.

Use one of the following keystrokes if you locate a control, or graphic
which you believe is labeled with an image of text:

• INSERT+SPACEBAR, O, C. Recognizes the currently selected control, such
as a graphical button.
• INSERT+SPACEBAR, O, W. Recognizes the current application window that
has focus.
• INSERT+SPACEBAR, O, S. Recognizes the entire screen.
• INSERT+SPACEBAR, O, Q. Cancels recognition while it is in progress.
• INSERT+SPACEBAR, O, QUESTION MARK. Speaks a brief help message
describing the commands in the OCR layer.

When you encounter graphical text and use one of these commands, JAWS
will recognize the image in a matter of seconds and activate the JAWS
cursor so you can navigate the resulting text. In order to differentiate
the recognized text from other text that may be in the window, JAWS will
use a different voice when it encounters the recognized text. The
recognized text will be in the same location as the actual image on the
screen, so you can use the left mouse click command to activate an
onscreen control. When you activate the PC cursor, or switch to another
application or dialog box, the text is removed and you will need to
perform the OCR again.


The Convenient OCR feature now allows you to recognize entire PDF
documents. In JAWS 16, if you open a PDF document and you do not find
any text to read,
press INSERT+SPACEBAR, O to access the OCR layer and then press the
letter D. After several seconds, the contents of the PDF file are
displayed in the Results Viewer for reading. You can use standard
reading commands to review the text. You can also select and copy
sections of content for pasting in other applications. For example, you
could select all, then copy and paste into a Microsoft Word document,
which you could then save.