Hi there Search Engine College members
I've had a couple of students contact me over the past few weeks asking if there were audio versions of our lessons available, either because they're visually impaired, prefer to learn using headphones, hate *reading* web pages or because they have trouble concentrating on printed pages.
In an attempt to address such accessibility issues, we are in the process of converting all of our PDF lessons over using Adobe Professional so they will open with Adobe Reader 6.0 and later versions. Why? Because the newest versions of
Adobe Reader have built in functionality called the Read Out Loud feature.
The Read Out Loud feature can take the place of a full-featured screen reader by converting text-to-voice using a speech synthesizer. Simply open the PDF document with Adobe Reader 6.0 or later, choose *View*, *Read Out Loud* and your preferred options then turn the volume up. The document will be read out loud by "Microsoft Sam".
More information on getting the most out of Read Out Loud, including keyboard shortcuts and personalized options is in
this article by WebAIM. You can even change the voice preference, which is highly recommended.
We'll be rolling out the revised PDFs for all courses over the next few weeks, starting with SEO101. Keep an eye on our
Twitter account as that's where we announce all lesson updates.
Not sure if your lessons work with Read Out Loud? Firstly, make sure you have the latest version of
Adobe Reader installed. Then open one of your PDF lessons. If your PDF lesson has a 2010 date, it means we've converted it already and you'll be able to use Read Out Loud right away. If it doesn't, you'll need to wait until we upload the revised version.
As always, if you have any questions, please post in the student forums.
Happy listening!