Kurzweil 3000:

Setting up a New User:

To set up a new user find “tools.” Under tools find “Options.” When you see “Options” click the “general tab.” A gray box should open up. In the gray box look for “miscellaneous.” Under miscellaneous click the box that says “Ask for User on Startup.” If this choice is checked you can set up preferences for each individual user. Your preferences will be saved on the computer you are working on.

Basic Functions:

Reading:

To find and customize the reading toolbar, pick “tools” from the top of the page. Under tools choose “customize” from the choices displayed vertically under tools. Then click on the “reading” tab. Clicking in the text and then selecting the read button enables the text-to-speech function. The user can than control how the text will be read, including at what speed the text will be read or the option to highlight the text with color.

Customize the Speed and Voices under the reading option:

From “Tools” select “Options.” Then select “Reading” from the tabs on the side. You should see a gray box with sections such as “speaker” and “extras.” Under “Speaker” you can choose the language you want to speak. After you have chosen your language give your account a name such as your name and a number. Next, you can test the speed of reading. Set your speed from 50 to 390 and press the “TestSpeech” button. You should hear the “sample text” read to you. If the speech is to slow move the dial more towards 390. If the speech is to fast, set the dial more towards 50. Play with the dial and the test speech function until you find the speed of speech right for you.

Colored highlighting of the text:

As the text is read by the computer it helps to be able to visually indicate what part of the text has been read. Kurzweil does this by highlighting the part of the text that the computer has already read. You can decide what kind of highlighting you want by finding the “tools” tab and clicking on “Options.” Under Options choose “Image.” A gray box should come up. In the gray box you should see a section called colors. Under colors you can choose the color of highlighting you want for text that has been read and the color you want the background of your screen to be. Many people with visual impairments prefer a blue or yellow background. Experiment to see what colors are right for you.

Writing:

The writing toolbar control the look of the text that is entered into the program.

From “Tools” choose “Customize” and then “Toolbars.” Then choose “Writing.” There you can choose what kind of font you want (such as Times New Roman) how big you want the font to be (for example 12 or 14 point font) and if you would like your font to be in bold. You can also choose if you want to see the writing tool bar that would allow you to change these options easily without having to go back to the customize toolbar box and do so manually.

To create a blank page in which to write, choose “File,” then “New,” then “Text File.”

To open an existing text file, choose “File” than “Open.”

Read the Web:

Kurzweil allows you to read the web through either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. To select which browser you want to use, go to “Tools” and then “Options.” Selection “Reading” under “Options.” In the bottom right-hand corner of the gray box you will find “Read the Web.” Check either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. When you open either Firefox or Explorer you will see a tool bar at the bottom that will allow you to choose text on the Web and have it read to you by Kurzweil.

Kurzweil reading a book, magazine, newspaper, or other paper, print material:
If you have Kurzweil professional, you can scan printed materials into Kurweil. If you don’t have Kurzweil professional, you need to make a TIFF or PDF file of the printed material using your scanner’s software.

After you have used your scanner’s software to create a PDF or TIFF file you can open the file using Kurzweil and save the file as a KESI file. Choose “Tools” and then “Options.” Under “Options” choose “Scanning.” On the far left of the gray box you should see “OCR.” Under OCR select “FineReader” in the “engine” box. This should allow you to convert your PDF or TIFF file to KESI.

Editing KESI Files:

Sometimes you will want to edit the text that has been scanned into your computer.

If the document that you want read to you doesn’t begin on page 1, you can align the document numbers by going to “View” then “Page” then “Set Page Numbers.”

Setting Zones:

The computer divides the text you want read to you into “Zones.” “Zones” affect what text is read and the order which it is read. You can see these “Zones’ by choosing “Scan” and then “Zone editor.”

Click on the text once to highlight a zone. Once you’ve done that you can change the order in which the Zones are read. Under “Zone Properties,” you can also decide wither text will always be read automatically (primary text) or only if you click on the text (secondary text).

Saving Files:

From Kurzweil you can save various file formats including Word or HTML documents. Use OmniPage or FineReader for OCR.

Reading a PDF document:

For Kurzweil to read a PDF you have to print the document to Kurweil using the KESI Virtual Printer.

Open the document you want to import into Kurweil. Choose the print option. Under the print drop-down box, select KESI Virtual Printer. When you open Kurzweil, you will find the document loaded into the window. You can then save the document as a KESI file.

Automator: Kurzweil Professional

(To check if you have Kurzweil Professional open Kurzweil 3000. From the menu bar select “Help” and then “About.” A window should pop up telling you what version of Kurzweil you have.)

If you have Kurzweil Professional you can convert TIFF files to KESI files using the Automater.

Insteal the Automater on your computer’s hard drive by inserting Kurzweil 3000 CD ROM and then choosing K3automator located in the Extras directory. The files that you want to download onto your hard drive are:

K3Automator.exe

And

K3Automator.chm

After you have downloaded the Automater software:

Step One: Create a directory called TIFF files on your desktop and copy the TIFF files from the CD ROM to that folder.

Step Two: Create a directory called KESI files on your desktop. This is where the completed KESI files will be located.

Step three: Start the K3Automator and set the Source and Destination directories. To start the K3Automator double click on K3Automator.exe. Then set the Source Hierarchy to “TIFF files” directory, and set the Destination Hierarchy to the “KESI files” directory.

Step four: Click on the “ok” button on the K3Automater. This will start converting the TIFF files.

Step five: Wait. Once all the files have been converted, the K3Automater will stop.

Step Six: Burn the file to the KESI files directory to a CD ROM.

Finding E-Text with Kurweil:

You can find online texts for Kurweil to read off the web!

From the Online menu, selection “Search for Books.” Enter the book information and Kurweil will automatically search for a digital version of the book you want to read.