230+ accessibility improvements added to Book Creator

At Book Creator, our mission has always been to bring digital publishing to all, and allow teachers the means to differentiate lessons for all types of learners. We've spent the last few months diligently working through a list of major (and minor) accessibility updates to make Book Creator easier to use for everyone. For those who understand and prioritise accessibility in their teaching, this is our most important update yet.

Explore the Accessibility hub in our knowledge base

We've made multiple tweaks to our iPad app over the years to make it more accessible. These updates all apply to the web version of Book Creator only.

At a glance:

• Dictation now supports 120 languages
• Add captions to video
• Add a transcript to audio recordings
• Navigate using your keyboard
• Improved color contrast
• Improved screen reader support
• What does this all mean for education?

Let's take a look under the hood.

Dictation now supports 120 languages

We've had speech-to-text in Book Creator since November 2017, but now we've supercharged it so you can dictate your text in 120 different languages. すごい

Speech to text in Book Creator

Something that we've been asked about many times by teachers is the ability to make the text bigger when editing in the text box. This is now possible using the magnifying glass in the bottom left.

Use the magnifying glass to enlarge text

Add captions to video

This is really cool. You can now auto-generate captions for the videos you add to Book Creator. This works for videos you take with the camera or uploaded videos. Generate the captions and then you can manually edit them as you need to (although it's amazing how accurate it is!).

This will be really beneficial for deaf or hard of hearing students, but also for language learners - you can choose from 120 languages for the captions.

When you've added captions, they will automatically play over the top of the video when you're in Read mode in Book Creator.

How to add captions to video

Add a transcript to audio recordings

Equally cool is the ability to now add transcripts to your audio hotspots. This brings a totally new dimension to a much-loved feature in Book Creator.

When you record your audio hotspots, you can have them automatically generate a transcript which can be read by clicking on the little icon on top of the hotspot. Again - you can choose from 120 languages for your transcript - bringing this feature to students and teachers around the world.

How to add audio transcripts

Navigate using your keyboard

Book Creator now supports full navigation with your keyboard.

This is for:

• People who are blind (who cannot use a device such as a mouse that requires eye-hand coordination).
• People with low vision (who may have trouble finding or tracking a pointer indicator on screen).
• Some people with hand tremors find using a mouse very difficult and therefore usually use a keyboard.

And, what's more (for those of you old enough to remember), using keyboard navigation with the pen tool totally feels like playing with an Etch-a-Sketch!

Just use the Tab key to navigate through menu items, and press Enter/Return to select the item. To draw like the diagram above, you use the arrow keys and hold down space to draw (and press Shift at the same time for broader strokes).

How to use keyboard navigation

Improved color contrast

We've made some tweaks to the way the app displays certain content - fonts, images etc. to make it easier to read for everyone. Take a look below - the screen on the right is what it looked like before (click on the image to enlarge it).