It’s undeniable that some people have sight problems and can’t see as well as others. This is an unfortunate situation which will affect some areas of their lives, but one thing we don’t want it to affect is what we control – how our office suite is used and how documents can be created. Open Office includes a lot of features to try and help users with these types of problems and in this article, we’re going to be discussing a few of them so that you know how to enable them and what each of them can do for you and the others who want to use this suite.
You can find all of the options we’re going to talk about here in the main options panel for this tool. You can find this by going into Tools –> Options. From this area, you’ll be able to configure each individual part of the office suite – whether that be Writer, Base or Impress. You can also change the general settings such as the fonts and styles which are used throughout the whole piece of software, you’re given a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to this tool. For the purpose of this article, though, you’re going to need to select the “Accessibility” tab to find the options relating to how the tool optimizes for eye problems.
Support assistive technology tools (program restart required) – If you enable this option then you’ll find that it will provide tools aimed at people with sight problems – such as reading text out for you and changing the colors for you. Note that as the option says, you will be required to reboot the suite in order for this option to become active. This is because the software does not normally load up the required assistive tools and will not do so until you tell the tool you want it to use them.
Use text selection cursor in read-only text documents – If you only want to select text when you’re reading documents which you don’t have access to change yourself (for example, another company has created a document and hasn’t given you access to change it yourself, all you can do is read it) then this option might be right for you. There are many different options included in this control panel that are worth a look at if you want to make sure that the office suite is optimized for people with sight problems or other issues that relate to accessibility and getting around the tool.
In conclusion, we’ve talked about two options here that you’ll find in the options panel which have been created to help you with accessibility. No matter what situation you’re in you can enable these options to try and make it easier for you to use the office suite. Nobody should have problems using a software package like this, we want our set of business tools to be available to everyone no matter what situation they’re in, so you shouldn’t have to worry about any sight problems you may have. We highly recommend that you install Open Office onto your computer if you haven’t done so already to make sure you take full advantage of these features and the rest of them that are available in the suite.
Tags: accessibility, open office, writer