The Kurzweil 1000 System

Information quoted from the product website::

Kurzweil 1000 is reading software that makes printed or electronic text accessible to people who are blind or have limited vision. It is the direct descendent of the first reading machine for people who are blind, invented by Ray Kurzweil in 1976.

Using Optical Character Recognition and Text to Speech technology combined with a unique audible user interface, Kurzweil 1000 converts the printed word into speech. Users can scan in books, articles, bills, and advertisements - almost anything that fits on a scanner, so they can quickly have the information read aloud. Moreover, the text can be saved in Kurzweil's accessible format for future reference and modification.

Current Kurzweil 1000 users have a great deal of control over how they manage the information they access and many tools to assist them in mastering it. To name a few, they can choose from numerous reading voices, set the reading speed and pitch, skim, summarize, look up words using a built in dictionary, create and edit new documents, check for spelling errors, set bookmarks and as of our latest version, share documents or excerpts through conventional e-mail applications.

Scanning and reading printed text with accuracy, speed and reliability continues to be the foundation of Kurzweil 1000, but it has evolved into a much more versatile tool. As of the latest release, Version 7, Kurzweil 1000 can open and read a broad variety of electronic text formats, efficiently search, download and read electronic books directly from Bookshare.org and other electronic book repositories, send files and excerpts to familiar e-mail applications, FAX and photocopy text and images, and much more.

More than ever, Kurzweil 1000 provides multiple avenues of accessible information, making printed pages and electronic archives more available and more useful to learners everywhere.

Credit Note: Many of these instructions were initially created by Michele Ostrow, Coordinator of Library Services for Users with Disabilities and Assistive Technology at the University of Texas at Austin. These instructions have been modified for use in the UNT Adaptive Lab. The original site of Ms. Ostrow's instructions can be found at this location.

Scanning and Reading Instructions:

1. Open the Kurzweil program by double-clicking on our desktop shortcut.

2. A welcome window will appear and be read aloud. Once the window has been read, it will automatically disappear.

3. Open the cover of the scanner located to the right of the monitor. Place the printed page you want read flush to the edge of the scanner bed. Close the scanner lid.

4. Press the "Plus" key on the numbered keypad on the far right of the keyboard to start the scan and OCR process. Or you can begin scanning by going to the Scan Menu and selecting Start New Scan or you can press F9 to begin scanning.

5. The program will let you know the status of the process. You'll hear progress messages that sound something like this, "Scanning, please wait," "Scanning one-quarter done," "Scan complete".

6. Once the scan and recognition are complete, the page will automatically be read aloud. To stop this reading, press "zero" on the numbered keypad on the far right of the keyboard. This "zero" key toggles document reading on and off. For more about the keypad and navigation of the software and scanned document see below.

7. Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each page you want scanned and read.

Saving the Scanned Text:

1. To save the scanned pages, press the "alt" key and the "f" key to open the "File" menu.

2. Use the down arrow key to move down to "save as" and then save your file on your floppy disk. If you are saving this for exportation to the Duxbury Braille Translation software, it is recommended that you save it as a text (.txt) file. If you wish to export this to MSWord, then save it as a rich text format (.rtf) file.

Navigating and controlling the program:

Note: Use the numbered keypad on the far right of the keyboard, not the numbers along the top. Additionally, if you are left-handed you may wish to use the special separate keypad we have provided for you to the left of the computer keyboard instead.

Row One - starting at the top of the keypad:

• Cancel (first key in row one; the num-lock key) - cancel an action
• Erase Text (second key in row one, the "/" key) - press once to erase current page; press twice to erase all pages - be careful with this key!
• Dictionary (third key in row one, the "*" key) - press to get dictionary definitions of current word
• Accept (fourth key in row one, the "-" key) - press to confirm actions that you have initiated

Row Two

• Volume Up (first key in row two, the 7 key) - press to increase volume
• Speed Up (second key in row two, the 8 key) - press to increase reading speed
• Reading Mode (third key in row two, the 9 key) - press to choose line, sentence, or paragraph
• Start or Stop Scanning (the vertical key at the right of the keypad, beneath the Accept key, the "+" key) - press to begin a scan or cancel a scan in progress

Row Three

• Volume Down (first key in row three, the 4 key) - press to decrease volume
• Speed Down (second key in row three, the 5 key) - press to decrease reading speed
• Multiple Column (third key in row three, the 6 key) - press to choose either single or multi-column recognition

Row Four

• Rewind (first key in row four, the 1 key) - press and release to move backward through the text one word at a time. Press and hold this key to move backward by unit or page
• Fast Forward (second key in row four, the 2 key) - press and release to move forward through the text one word at a time. Press and hold this key to move forward by unit or page
• Go to Page (third key in row four, the 3 key) - press to go to any page in current file
• Help (fourth key in row for, the "enter" key) - press before another key to find out the function of that key. If you continue to keep the key pressed, you will hear a very detailed description of that key's function. For example, if you press "enter" and then press the 3 key, you will hear, "Go to Page key".

Row Five

• Start and Stop Reading (horizontal key at bottom left of keypad, the 0 key) - press to stop or resume reading
• Spell (small key to the right of the Start and Stop Reading key, the "Del" or "." key) - press to spell current word.

If you have any further questions about the Kurzweil system and its use, please ask a lab consultant. Our lab consultants have been specially trained on this system.