Kurzweil Users
What is Kurzweil?
Kurzweil is a text to speech software that creates a customizable experience for students to listen and visually follow along with course material.
Kurzweil is for students who have been approved for alternate format in PDF and Kurzweil 3000. The requested material will be delivered to students through the Kurzweil's Universal Library.
Request Alternate Format
Steps to Get Course Readings in Kurzweil:
- Submit the Alternate Format Request Form and selected the following format to the questions: What format did the DRC approve your course readings to be converted to?
- Kurzweil
- Create a Kurzweil 3000 account: the registration link will be provided by your disability services specialist or the alternate format team
- Login to Kurzweil to access converted readings
- Textbooks will be uploaded as they become available
- Converted weekly PDF readings will be uploaded to your Kurzweil account by Friday evening before the week the reading is needed. These readings will be organized into weekly subfolders within each course folder
- Example: Week 4 readings will be uploaded by Friday of week 3
***The alternate format team converts scanned PDF readings that are not compatible with Kurzweil. If course readings are digitally created (meaning you can drag your curser along individual lines of text), you are responsible for these readings. The alternate format team recommends using the built in Blackboard Ally text-to-speech format Immersive Reader (more info below) to access these readings or you can upload them to your Kurzweil account.
If the format of your course readings fall outside textbook and PDF readings (such as webpages or education apps), the alternate format team will reach out to you to discuss resources to access these readings in an alternate format.
If you need assistance with any of these steps or do not see your requested readings in Kurzweil, contact the alternate format team immediately via email accesstext@uic.edu
After Submitting an Alternate Format Request:
Follow the Kurzweil 3000 registration link provided by your disability services specialist or alternate format team to create a Kurzweil account and ensure you can access your account.
Steps to create Kurzweil account:
- Fill out your name
- UIC email
- Select “University of Illinois-Chicago” as the school org
- Create a username for the “external id”
- Click “add new.”
- Navigate to your email where you’ll find an email from Kurzweil titled “Kurzweil 3000 Account Activated!” prompting you to create a password for your account.
- Login to your Kurzweil account and wait for an email from the alternate format team (accesstext@uic.edu) about next steps!
Access the Kurzweil website or download the desktop application
Where Do I Find Converted Course Readings?
What to Expect:
The alternate format team will gain access to your requested textbooks and upload them to the appropriate course folder or sub course folder in your Kurzweil account as they become available.
What to Expect:
- The alternate format team will verify the compatibility of the course readings with your instructors and convert scanned PDF readings to make them compatible with Kurzweil
- Converted PDF readings will be uploaded to your Kurzweil account by Friday evening before the week the reading is needed. These readings will be organized into weekly subfolders within each course folder
- Example: Week 4 readings will be uploaded by Friday of week 3
- Converted PDF readings will be uploaded to your Kurzweil account by Friday evening before the week the reading is needed. These readings will be organized into weekly subfolders within each course folder
- If the alternate format team determines the PDF readings provided by your instructors are already compatible with Kurzweil (digitally created meaning you can drag your curser along individual lines of text), then the alternate format team will not upload these readings
- We recommend you use the built in Blackboard Ally text-to-speech format Immersive Reader (more info below).
What to Expect:
If the format of your course readings fall outside textbook and PDF readings (such as webpages or education apps), the alternate format team will reach out to you to discuss resources to access these readings using a text-to-speech program.
Kurzweil Resources
Kurzweil Uploads
- Login to your Kurzweil account
- To create a folder in Kurzweil, right click on an existing folder (ex: “private” or “fall_2025”) and select “add folder,” name the folder for the course or week (ex: bio_203 or w1) NOTE: Kurzweil does not recognize capitals/spaces in titles
- Click on the folder you want to upload to (ex: bios_110 or w1) so that it is highlighted in an aqua blue color.
- Click the orange upload button on the top right corner which will open your computer and you can choose the document you’d like to upload
- Opening the file in the pop up window will start the upload into Kurzweil and soon after, a window will pop up to say “upload successful!”
- You can read the document as soon as it is fully loaded into Kurzweil and able to be opened
- To rename a document, you click on the little white box next to the title and click the white “rename” button on the right side of the screen.
Read the Web
Watch the Kurzweil tutorial video to learn how Read the Web extension gets installed and can be enabled/disabled on different websites (you click the button like a light switch, to turn it on/off)
Read the web should generally work with websites and if you encounter a URL that ends in .pdf, the red PDF button will appear on the Kurzweil menu and when you select it, you’ll be able to open the PDF into your account within the web version of Kurzweil
Kurzweil Tutorials
This video walks users through how to access their material on Kurzweil and how to optimize the usability of the program. It has closed captions.
Kurzweil Tutorials
This video provides more in depth instructions on how to upload material and move material around your account. It has closed captions.
Blackboard Resources
What is Blackboard Ally and How Do I Use It?
A built in feature on Blackboard called Blackboard Ally offers alternate formats features for course materials. It is available to all students and is a resource for course materials uploaded as digitally created or readable PDFs (PDFs that you can drag your curser along individual lines of text).
- Documents with Blackboard Ally available with have a bold capitalized A and a down arrow to the right of the document title.
- Select the A down arrow icon and select the format you’d like the document converted to (we recommend immersive reader text-to-speech)
- The converted document will open and select the play button in the bottom center of the browser
Supported download formats:
- OCR’d PDF: allows users to make a scanned PDF into a searchable text, enabling users to highlight, add notes, and search the document
- Tagged PDF: allows users to download a PDF that has increased accessibility for screen reader users
- HTML
- ePub
- Electronic Braille
- Audio: allows users to listen to course material in MP3
- Beeline Reader: allows users to adjust color gradient of text to reduce eye strain
- Immersive Reader (requires internet): allows users to set font size/spacing/contrast and converts text to speech with integrated highlighting function and other customized reading settings. (Does not currently support images/tables)
- Text-to-Speech
Supported Browsers
Ally is supported on the same browser as the Learning Management System (LMS) it is accessed from.
- Google Chrome™
- Mozilla Firefox®
- Microsoft Edge®
- Internet Explorer®
- Safari®
Alternate Formats Overview for Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally's Built-In Text-to-Speech Format, Immersive Reader
Youtube tutorial demonstrating how to find and access immersive reader (text-to-speech) on Blackboard which allows students to enable text-to-speech on documents uploaded to Blackboard.