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Creating Accessible Onscreen Books using PowerPoint Software for

Windows (Microsoft Office 2014)

Mari Beth Coleman, Ph.D.

Jason R. Gordon, Ed.S.

University of Tennessee

*Feel free to use these directions, but please retain original credit.

Also, please note that creating adapted books for students who do

not have print disabilities may be in violation of copyright law.

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What You Will Need to Create Books in PowerPoint

1. Scanner

2. Scanning Software

3. Microphone

4. Microsoft Paint or other paint program if you want to make changes to your scanned

pictures. (Paint is found in the accessories on Windows computers)

5. Microsoft PowerPoint Software

Step-by-Step Directions for Creating Books

1. Place the first page of the book you wish to scan face down on the scanner. Follow the

manufacturer's instructions for scanning and scan the first page.

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2. Rotate the image if necessary using the scanning software.

3. Save the page as a bitmap file (.bmp). You may find it helpful to save the pages into a

folder with the same name as the book title and save each page with a keyword from the

title and its page number. This will aid you in locating the page you need when you transfer it

to PowerPoint.

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4. Using the Paint program, you can make changes to the scanned image. Some changes

you might want to make are erasing stray marks or dark areas around the scanned image,

separating the picture and text to make it more visually distinguishable, or erasing the

text so you can make it bigger by retyping the text in PowerPoint. You can also crop the extra

space around a picture by selecting only the area you want to put into PowerPoint.

If your scanned image is exactly as you want it to appear in PowerPoint, you can skip the steps

involving Paint.

5. Open the Microsoft Paint program.

6. Click File then Open. Locate the folder where you saved the scanned pages. Open the

first page of the book.

7. Make any changes you want to the page.

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8. Select the area of the page that you want to put into PowerPoint and copy it.

9. Open PowerPoint software.

10. Click Home and then Layout. From this Layout menu, choose a blank.

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11. Click into the blank slide and paste the picture you copied from Paint.

12. Move and resize the image as needed.

13. In this example, the text was removed from the original page so that it could be replaced

with a larger, clearer font. Before you insert any text, click Design then Fonts then Create New

Theme Fonts, to set fonts for both heading and body text for the entire slide show. Choose a font

that will be appropriate for the intended student. For this example, "Aharoni, bold, size 32" was

used. This font was chosen in this example for very young children because the letter "a"

appears in a plain style ("a"). By setting the font before you place a text box, you will not have

to change the text for every page. Next, insert a text box by clicking Insert and then Text Box.

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14.a) Place the text box where you want it and then type the text that was on that page of the

book.

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14.b) Click inside the box with the cursor and begin typing your text.

15. a) To add highlighting to the text, you will use custom animation. First, highlight your

text. On the menu bar, choose Animations and then Add Custom Animations. In the Custom

Animation window choose Brush Color.

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15.b) Use Effect Options to change the color of your selected text.

15. c) You will then set the options for the Brush Color. Under Animations tab, Timing

Set: Start, Duration and Delay (your choice, but should be optimal for student). When you

begin recording, you may need to play with the percent to make the timing of the highlighting

fit with the speed at which you are recording your voice.

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16. Create a new slide by clicking Insert then New Slide.

17. Save your PowerPoint book! Remember to save often so you don't lose your work!

(Speaking from experience, we can tell you this step may be the most important!)

18. Open the next scanned page of the book using Paint software and repeat all steps until

you have the pictures and text for all pages of the book on their own separate slide. To

make it more efficient for going between two programs, you can toggle between the two

programs by clicking on the one you want open in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

19.a) After you have all of the pictures and text in your PowerPoint book (and saved), you will

record the text. To do this, click on your first slide (first page of the book) so that it is the slide

showing in the PowerPoint screen.

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19.b) Then set up your slide show to either transition manually or automatically (depending on

the needs of your student). The manual option gives the student control to switch through slides

at his or her preferred pace. Slide Show, Set Up Show then choose Manually or Using Timings.

Timings can be used to automate transitions within and between slides.

20. Click Slide Show, then under Set Up, click Record Slide Show. You will then check to start

recording from the beginning or start recording from current slide.

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Adjust the microphone level by clicking: Computer, Control Panel, Sound, and Recording.

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22.a) Next, you will record the narration. You need to be ready for this step, because as soon as

you press OK recording begins. Once you press OK, you will see the first screen of the slide

show. You will read the text on that screen and then mouse-click (or spacebar) to advance to the

next screen where you will record the text for that page. Once you begin recording, you will

record the entire book. Read each page and then click the mouse to advance until you reach the

end.

22.b) Remember to leave pauses for the reader to have time to look at the pictures. If you make

a mistake, you can rerecord or go back and record from the slide on which you made an error.

You can also rerecord only certain slides by pressing Esc after you record the slide but before

you click to go to the next one. At the end of the book, choose Save to save the narrations.

ONLY SAVE SLIDE TIMINGS IF you want the book to advance automatically. If you want

the student to have control over the book, do not save timings.

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22.c) IF YOU ARE USING HIGHLIGHTING: You will record your voice by clicking

to start each page and then reading each word as it highlights. This can be tricky and you

may need to hit escape and re-record slides to make sure the highlighting matches the recorded

voice.

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23. Once you save your book, you will see a layout of all of the slides. You can use the three

icons at the bottom left side of the screen to

toggle between this layout, the design view layout, and the slide show (book being read).

Once you are happy with your book, save it and it is ready to be enjoyed!!