Dear List, I've been struck by how willing we are to accept the fact that VO doesn't work natively with MS Word. At one level all the work-arounds show just how flexible, enterprising, and creative we are; every employer should be eager to hire anyone with such spark and, yes, ability. But am I the only one who fluctuates between sadness and outright anger that a program like MS Word, so standard in every single thing related to word processing, isn't accessible from the get- go? Every work-around means time and energy taken away from the main task at hand, whatever it is we're hoping to do. Each conversion on its own is just a few seconds here and there. But these seconds add up, plus they leave us open to unnecessary mistakes, which reflect badly on our capabilities.
I know some people on this list have been trying to change this. I propose we band together, and really push for this to happen collectively. We can certainly make it more public that despite all the claims for accessibility, VO doesn't work with a MAJOR program. I frankly don't care whether the fault lies with Apple or Microsoft - they need to be made to play together, just as they surely have on other matters. As an added incentive, I know that lots more sighted people are warming to the idea of having long documents read to them, which means that this improvement would have broader benefits and could even be a marketing tool for Apple to tout its screen reader as an interesting technology for all. Please excuse this rant, but it's been building up; I just can't understand why we're so willing to accept the status quo when the thing that excited so many of us about the Mac was finally being part of mainstream technology. In solidarity, cathyk -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
