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Many library resources, such as journal articles and chapters of e-books can be downloaded in PDF format. You should find that these files can be used with your assistive technology.

Here are some tips for reading PDFs and activating accessibility features when opening a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Change background and text colour

For files which already have an image layer over the text - try zooming and reflow first.

1. Go to the main menu, select Edit > Preferences
2. The Preferences dialogue box will open.
3. Choose Accessibility. In the Document colors options section, check the box Replace document colours. You can choose from a number of options including high contrast combinations or custom colours. Select the background and text swatches to choose a new colour.
4. Select OK and your adjustments will be applied.

Hear text with Read Out Loud

To hear the document read within Adobe using synthesized speech. 

1. Go to the main menu,
2. Select View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud or use the keyboard short cut Shift + Ctrl + Y

Zoom and reflow text

Magnify text and fit it to the width of the page to eliminate horizontal scrolling.

1. To increase the size of the text use the + button in the tool bar, or select a value from the drop down box or enter a value of your choice. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + +
2. To fit the width of the text to the window go to the main menu, select View > Zoom > Reflow or use the keyboard short cut Ctrl + 4

Automatic Scrolling

You can move through a document without manually scrolling with a mouse or keyboard by activating automatic scrolling.

1. Go to the main menu, select View > Page Display > Automatically Scroll or use the keyboard short cut Shift + Ctrl + H.
2. Use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to increase or decrease the scrolling speed.

Viewing PDFs on mobile devices

To view a PDF easily on a small mobile screen without having to pinch or zoom, use Liquid mode in the free Adobe Acrobat Reader app. The app is available for iOS and Android.

1. Open your PDF using the Adobe Acrobat Reader app
2. From the navigation, choose the Liquid mode icon.

Liquid mode is not available in PDFs of more than 200 pages, over 10 MB in size, scanned images of texts.