question and request regarding calibre accessibility

Shehryar · 03-18-2025, 07:43 AM

Hello:
Are there any plans to improve the accessibility of Calibre reader? In its current stage, it is pretty much entirely unusable by visually impaired folks. The software itself seems really neat, and I really want to switch over to it for managing my eBook collection as well as reading books.
Thank you

kovidgoyal · 03-18-2025, 08:51 AM

What's preventing you from using it?

Shehryar · 03-19-2025, 12:31 AM

One thing I can remember off the top of my head is that the reader itself isn't currently accessible. So I can load up a book into it, but trying to read the book with NVDA won't work at all. I can use OCR, but even then I only get to read a short segment of the full text of the book, and the text within said segment is oddly fragmented too.
An Add-on for NVDA, which is the screen reading software I use, adds some basic accessibility. So I can move around my library just fine. Mostly just fine

kovidgoyal · 03-19-2025, 01:51 AM

The reader uses Qt WebEngine, any accessibility linkages have to come from there. But if you want to read books aloud either use the read aloud function in the viewer (press ctrl+s to start it) or convert the book to TXT and then you can use any existing software to read it aloud.

03-18-2025, 07:43 AM	#1
Shehryar Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2025 Device: none?	question and request regarding calibre accessibility Hello: Are there any plans to improve the accessibility of Calibre reader? In its current stage, it is pretty much entirely unusable by visually impaired folks. The software itself seems really neat, and I really want to switch over to it for managing my eBook collection as well as reading books. Thank you

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03-18-2025, 08:51 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	What's preventing you from using it?

03-19-2025, 12:31 AM	#3
Shehryar Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2025 Device: none?	One thing I can remember off the top of my head is that the reader itself isn't currently accessible. So I can load up a book into it, but trying to read the book with NVDA won't work at all. I can use OCR, but even then I only get to read a short segment of the full text of the book, and the text within said segment is oddly fragmented too. An Add-on for NVDA, which is the screen reading software I use, adds some basic accessibility. So I can move around my library just fine. Mostly just fine

03-19-2025, 01:51 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,345 Karma: 27182818 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	The reader uses Qt WebEngine, any accessibility linkages have to come from there. But if you want to read books aloud either use the read aloud function in the viewer (press ctrl+s to start it) or convert the book to TXT and then you can use any existing software to read it aloud.

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