news

ZoomText Mac Update Available

Our first free update for ZoomText Mac is here!  We now offer support for French, Spanish, and Portuguese, fixed a bunch of bugs, improved performance across the board, and added a new color enhancement.  You can now apply a warming/cooling effect to any of the preset color schemes, letting you fine tune your color preferences.

Read on for all the details!

Next Event

National Association of Blind Merchants B.L.A.S.T. (Business Leadership and Superior Training) Conference
May 20th - May 23rd, 2013
Indianapolis, IN

Check out our complete list of upcoming events.

Survey Results:  Reading Tool Preferences

In the last issue of ZoomNews, we asked you about your reading tool preferences in ZoomText as well as suggestions for designing the ideal tool.  First off, congratulations to Paul Loebe - his name was drawn in the raffle and he won a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate.

We’ve compiled the complete results and here were a few tidbits to share:

• Your preferred reading tool in ZoomText is AppReader.


• The majority of you pay attention to the word-by-word highlighting on screen, and in fact, that was listed as the most useful way to highlight content.  A distant second was “sentence by sentence”.



Read the rest of the results!

New Contest

This time around, we’re asking you the following question:  “What is the ONE feature you would add to ZoomText?” This is your chance to give us feedback and help influence future versions of the software!

Please submit your answer to Becca by email by April 30th.  Try to keep your email to the ONE feature that you want above all others.  Everyone who sends in a suggestion will be entered into the drawing for a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate.  Send in your answer now!

Free iOS Apps for the Visually Impaired

There was a terrific presentation at the recent CSUN conference entitled “25 Free Apps for Low Vision” – not all of the apps discussed were specifically designed for the visually impaired, but they are all helpful in their own ways.  Some are for independent living, some are for accessing news, some are just interesting. 

They range from TapTapSee, an object identifier app; to EyeNote, an app that identifies US paper currency; to Cookulator Lite, an app that converts units of measurement in the kitchen.

Head on over to our blog to check them all out - these are great suggestions to pass along to your customers!

Take the NLS Survey

For those who are print disabled, the National Library Service (NLS) of the Library of Congress provides material (books, magazines, music) in a variety of formats including large print, Braille, on cassette tapes, on flash drives and digitally via download.

If you use their service or if perhaps there is something preventing you from being able to use it, here’s your chance to provide them with some feedback.  You can take their survey online until May 10 or give them a call at 1 (866) 545-1618 to schedule a phone interview.  Their collected data will influence decision-making, so now’s a good time to give them your two cents.

Cool Websites #16

ZoomText user Kathy Kalaluhi sent in a bunch of websites that she thought other ZoomText users would find interesting and helpful.  We liked the idea so much that it’s become a regular “column” in ZoomNews!  Below were her suggestions and if you’d like to submit any websites for the next issue, please email them to Becca at !

Check out all the sites she recommends!

ZoomText ImageReader is Released!

ZoomText ImageReader has arrived! ImageReader is a software and camera solution that makes printed text accessible to people who are visually impaired, including books, magazines business documents and more. Put the printed item underneath the included HD document camera, snap a picture, and a few seconds later the text appears in large, high-contrast fonts and is read aloud in natural-sounding voices.

In addition to printed text, ImageReader can also capture and read text from image files, the Windows Clipboard or right off of your computer screen; perfect for reading graphical text from electronic documents and webpages.

Read on for all the details!

ZoomText Mac Special Offer!

As you have probably heard, ZoomText is now available on the Mac!  Check out the video we created to show it off.

ZoomText Mac is only $149 for our ZoomText PC customers!!  We know that a lot of you run both platforms, so we wanted to give you a break off of the normal price of ZT Mac ($399 / $299 introductory offer).

For this extra special deal, give us a call and have your ZoomText PC serial number on hand:  800-859-0270 or 802-362-3612 option #2.  If you’d like to try it before you buy, download our free 30-day trial. 

If you have any questions, call us at 800-859-0270 or 802-362-3612 option #2.

ZoomText 10.0.7 is released!

We’re excited to announce that the next free update in the ZoomText 10 cycle is here.  We improved our reading support in IE8 as well as support in a range of areas when using OpenOffice, plus added a fix for running Java applications.

Read more about 10, read the release notes, or download a free 60-day trial to give it a try yourself.