Those of you who know me probably know that I have low vision - or to put it another way I'm as blind as a bat. :-) Those of you who don't might have been able to figure it out from my picture. It's true my vision is pretty bad. (It varies from about 20/100 to 20/120 with my glasses on.) However, I know there are folks out there who have it far worse than I do.
Recently, a colleague of mine here at the IMF asked me what software I use for screen magnification. She has family members of varying levels of computer literacy who have a need for such things.
She was thinking about buying
JAWS. I don't recommend this unless you are totally blind. JAWS is expensive unless you get a government grant, due to its fairly small base of portential customers - mainly progressive governments and a handful of blind folks who happen to be wealthy beyond reason.
Instead, here are three alternatives I suggest for low vision adaptivity on the cheap.
- Use the native features of Windows. Most people do not know this, but there are color, font, and magnification tools built straight into Windows nowadays. To find them, go to Start Menu > [All] Programs > Accessories > Accessibility. Mind you they aren't the best I have ever seen, lacking features and sometimes even becoming unstable, but - hey - you can't beat free.
- Use this nifty Magnifying Glass application which I believe comes from IBM's ThinkPad or maybe Microsoft.
Download from ThomasCarpe.com
It also seems that some other folks posted this on one of those file sharing web sites, but obviously I can't vouche for it being free of viruses or spyware.
4Share download
FreeDownloadsPlace download
- Dana Hanna, a very talented colleague I worked with while I was at Constellation Energy (he and I have both moved on since then) wrote an amazing little magnifying app, for which he graciously provided source code as well. I've been using this one for quite a while, because it has both features I wanted and the ability for me to add more as I think of them. Of course it's always been just a little buggy, and I guess having source is only an advantage if you happen to be a programmer.
Torian Magnifier (download and source)
- Finally, maybe try this. They seem to have an interesting collection of FreeWare and ShareWare magnification tools, althought some of them appear to be effect filters for Photoshop.
http://text.software.informer.com/download-text-magnifier-shareware/
Anyway, I hope people will find this list helpful, and if I find any new resources, I will try to keep it up to date.