Well splendid fault, that only applies to some pdfs, the ones that were created with scanned images of a document rather than a document itself, but I suspect an academic form like the ones cj mentioned is the other kind that uses text.

Basically Cj, pdfs are a document format created to present documents in a read only way that can't be written on, and print out very well, with all their images and graphics. most these days will contain propper text and thus can be accessified, but there are stil some as splendid fault mentioned which don't.

To read them, you need to use the Adoby acrobat reader program, however there are two versions, the normal version and an access version Found here

The access version looks exactly like the normal one, and behaves the same, but is far better at handling text for screen readers. Also, this isn't hugely clear from Adoby's site which is why I have the link, and indeed bang a link to this version on any game pages that mmight run into adoby documents such as on the arborell gamebooks archive sinse the gamebooks there are all pdfs (though they convert fine with the accessibly adoby reader).

Once you've installed that program, find the document in windows explorer (or open the program and hit ctrl o). Select the "read all pages" option and wait while the document is compiled, which might take a while.

Once it's done your screen reader should be able to read the text in the document. (indeed there's a sapi self voicing option too). If it finishes and you get no text read, I'm afraid it's an image only pdf as Splendid fault said and you'll need a scanning program or to print it nd scan it back in. However as I said I'm fairly certain most academic forms are written with a normal word processor so should read fine (the ones at my university do). You won't be able to actually write on the form sinse as I said, pdfs are read only.

So, go into the file menue and select the "save as accessible txt" option. Save it (this again is likely to take a while), and you'll have a copy in txt format which you can write on just like a normal document.

Hth.

And yes, pdfs are a pain in the bumb! Their main bennifits, good printing and images don't apply to vi users, and they are just inconvenient. at least those these days most will conert to text reasonably, or even be read by screen readers like Jaws and Hal directly in acrobat without a problem.

I do remember one point where even text pdfs were pretty inaccessible.