As part of UK Disability History Month, we are promoting our Accessibility Tools which enable you to adapt our collections to best suit your unique reading and learning needs.
EBooks are a vital part of the learning experience, so it is important that our eBook platforms are accessible.
Our main eBook platform, Kortext has some excellent features that can improve your reading experience:
Read aloud
On the Kortext App, you can convert text to speech using the read aloud function, this is available for both EPUB and PDF content.
You can change the narrator, speed up or slow down the pace of the narration, and easily skip forward or skip back through the text.
The Kortext App is also compatible with screen reading software including JAWS, TalkBack and VoiceOver.
Text options
When reading most eBooks in the Kortext browser view or via the app, you can change the font style, text size, line spacing and margin width.
There is also the option to switch between scroll and single pages mode.
To change how the text is displayed select the Display options icon
Background colour options
Kortext allows you to change the background colour.
In the Kortext App you can choose a standard white background or change to sepia or dark mode (white text on a black background).
When viewing on a browser, you can choose from a wider selection of colours: sepia, yellow, blue, green, and peach, plus dark mode (white text on a black background).
To change the background colour, go to the Display options icon
Then select your preferred colour under the tone option.
Offline reading
Using the Kortext App means you can download an eBook onto your device which you can continue to access even when you are offline. So, if you are somewhere without a reliable Wi-Fi or data connection - such as when you are commuting - you can continue to read anywhere and on any device. This also means you don’t need to use up your phone data to read our eBooks when away from a Wi-Fi connection.
To access your eBooks offline, make sure you have the Kortext App installed on your device. When you open the app and select the title you want to read from the library, it will then download onto your device. Any notes or highlighting you make whilst reading the book offline will save and synch up across your devices when you are back online.
You can learn more about Kortext’s accessibility features and learn about other tools that may be useful to you on the Learning Success Hub Accessibility Tools page.
To mark Disability History Month, we are also asking for suggestions for our Disability and Neurodiversity Collection. If there is a book you would us to add to the collection, please Request an eBook.
