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PDFs are terrible for screen readers for very much all the reasons listed here. This article does make me wonder though if we'll ever get to a point where OCR

PDFs are terrible for screen readers for very much all the reasons listed here. This article does make me wonder though if we'll ever get to a point where OCR tech is sufficiently accurate and efficient that screen readers will start incorporating OCR in some form.

totetsu 6y ago
It will have to out-pace the DRM tech that will stop you capturing pixels from pdfs deemed "protected"
- rosstex 6y ago
  Can you link to something that describes this tech?
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    There are way too many approaches to enumerate in a reply, but the StackOverflow answer covers just a few of the approaches I’ve seen used on Windows: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22218857/17027 https://stackoverflow.com/a/22218857/17027 The GPU approach is considerably harder to work around, fwiw. Still possible, of course.
    - manquer 6y ago
      You will always be able to decode it, today running VM or just Chrome with head on a box is simple way to bypass these techniques most of the time. Even if DRM on video output becomes common(HDMI has them unlike VGA), Ultimately video protocols have to emit analog signal they will have to render to photons your eye can see, CAM rippers use this. It will be possible always to decode.[1] [2] [1] Until neuralink kind of tech becomes mainstream and every content owner requires the interface to consume the content, and the interface can biologically authenticate the user . [2] They can trace a CAM ripper, basis unique IDs embedded watermark etc, but they can never "stop" them from actually ripping, they can only block/penalize the legal source the rip originated from.
  - totetsu 6y ago
    I am mostly upset by whatever change chrome made to extensions that stopped Copyfish from being able to capture clipped areas from webpages.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  Would that apply here? You can still just point a camera at the screen. If the OCR works well, there's little concern for loss of quality/accuracy from doing this. Any lawyers here able to comment on whether that would be a DMCA violation?
scrollaway 6y ago
Can screen readers correctly parse clean PDFs? As in, if I'm able to copy paste text from a PDF and get clean results, are the current screen readers able to read from those types of PDFs or is it a completely unimplemented format? I'm asking because I don't think the problem is with PDF itself as much as it is with certain PDF output programs.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
As someone who knows nothing about OCR, aren't we already there? I recall being very impressed when I first saw the OCR in the Google Translate mobile app, and that was about 6 years ago.

totetsu 6y ago

It will have to out-pace the DRM tech that will stop you capturing pixels from pdfs deemed "protected"

rosstex 6y ago
Can you link to something that describes this tech?
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  There are way too many approaches to enumerate in a reply, but the StackOverflow answer covers just a few of the approaches I’ve seen used on Windows: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22218857/17027 https://stackoverflow.com/a/22218857/17027 The GPU approach is considerably harder to work around, fwiw. Still possible, of course.
  - manquer 6y ago
    You will always be able to decode it, today running VM or just Chrome with head on a box is simple way to bypass these techniques most of the time. Even if DRM on video output becomes common(HDMI has them unlike VGA), Ultimately video protocols have to emit analog signal they will have to render to photons your eye can see, CAM rippers use this. It will be possible always to decode.[1] [2] [1] Until neuralink kind of tech becomes mainstream and every content owner requires the interface to consume the content, and the interface can biologically authenticate the user . [2] They can trace a CAM ripper, basis unique IDs embedded watermark etc, but they can never "stop" them from actually ripping, they can only block/penalize the legal source the rip originated from.
- totetsu 6y ago
  I am mostly upset by whatever change chrome made to extensions that stopped Copyfish from being able to capture clipped areas from webpages.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
Would that apply here? You can still just point a camera at the screen. If the OCR works well, there's little concern for loss of quality/accuracy from doing this. Any lawyers here able to comment on whether that would be a DMCA violation?

scrollaway 6y ago

Can screen readers correctly parse clean PDFs? As in, if I'm able to copy paste text from a PDF and get clean results, are the current screen readers able to read from those types of PDFs or is it a completely unimplemented format? I'm asking because I don't think the problem is with PDF itself as much as it is with certain PDF output programs.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

As someone who knows nothing about OCR, aren't we already there? I recall being very impressed when I first saw the OCR in the Google Translate mobile app, and that was about 6 years ago.