Kurzweil Users

Request Alternate Format in 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.

Steps to request alternate format in Kurzweil:

  1. Submit the Alternate Format Request Form and selected any of the following formats to the questions: What format did the DRC approve your course readings to be converted to?
    • Kurzweil
  2. Register with Kurzweil 3000 (Web license edition): the registration link will be provided by your Disability Services Specialist or the alternate format team
  3. The alternate format team will create a folder titled “semester_year” inside the "private folder." Within this folder you’ll find course folders that contain textbooks and/or weekly folders (depending on the course structure) when material becomes available
  4.  Check your Kurzweil account to see if new material is available, if you do not see your requested material in Kurzweil by the time you need it, contact the alternate format team immediately via email at accesstext@uic.eduIf you need assistance with any of these steps you can contact Nicole Sims, our Alternate Format Specialist at accesstext@uic.edu

Access Converted Readings on Kurzweil Heading link

Where to Find your Course Readings
  • When your textbooks and course readings become available on Kurzweil, you’ll find them within the “private” folder,  by selecting “fall_2024”, the desired course, within each course folder you may find textbook files or sub folders for textbooks and/or weekly readings depending on the nature of the request.
For courses that only require textbooks
  • We will gain access to your requested texts and post them onto Kurzweil within the course folder or as a subfolder within the course folder.
For courses that post assigned PDF readings on Blackboard
  •  The alternate format team will verify the accessibility of the PDF readings with your professors and if necessary, we’ll convert the readings to make them compatible with Kurzweil and post them on Kurzweil, typically by Friday evening before the week the reading is needed.
  • Whereas if the alternate format team determines that the readings posted by faculty is already accessible and compatible with Kurzweil (digitally created and readable meaning you can drag your curser along individual lines of text), then we recommend you use the built in Blackboard Ally text-to-speech format Immersive Reader (more info below).

Kurzweil Resources Heading link

Kurzweil Uploads

Articles and textbooks published electronically should be compatible with Kurzweil as long as they are “readable” meaning you can highlight lines of text by dragging your curser across the page (rather than a scanned or picture PDF). If you would like to upload documents to Kurzweil, follow these instructions:
  1. Login to your Kurzweil account
  2. To create a folder in Kurzweil, right click on an existing folder (ex: “private” or fall_2024) 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
  3. Click on the folder you want to upload to (ex: bios_110 or w1) so that it is highlighted in an aqua blue color.
  4. 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
  5. 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!”
  6. You can read the document as soon as it is fully loaded into Kurzweil and able to be opened
  7. 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.
*If you select the “Google Drive, One Drive, or Computer” to upload a document, it will upload to your “recently_opened_files” folder. If this happens, you can create a folder and move the document from recently_opened_files into the new folder.
If when opening a document to Kurzweil you get an error that reads “There is no text available to read on this page,” it likely means the PDF is a scanned PDF (picture) rather than a readable PDF. Try navigating to the second page of the document (past the cover page, onto a page with written content), if you still get this message, email the alternate format team at accesstext@uic.edu so that we can remediate the document and ensure it is compatible with Kurzweil.

Read the Web

Kurzweil Read the Web is a web extension that operates like the web platform or desktop platform of Kurzweil, but for websites.
Install Read the Web
Please note: the plugin is only compatible with a personal gmail account not your UIC gmail

 

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 Heading link

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.

This video provides more in depth instructions on how to upload material and move material around your account. It has closed captions.