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Posted by pat on 12/11/2001, 10:53 pm VISION If you want to use a small font in an AppleWorks document, but find its hard for you to see on the screen, you can adjust the screen view without affecting the printed output. Simply go to the bottom left of the document and click on the icon of large mountains. This will enlarge the view on the screen. Clicking on the small mountains will shrink the view. If you click on the mountains and the resulting view is too large, go to the number to the left of the mountain, click and drag to adjust the view scale (what you see compared to what will print; 100% means both are equal). If you have trouble finding that pesky little i-beam cursor on a page of text, go to the Control Panel, pull down to Mouse, then click the box at the bottom to get a thicker i-beam cursor. You can also pull down to General Controls in the Control Panel and speed up the rate of Insertion Point Blinking to see if that helps get your attention. From the Control Panel, pull down to Trackpad. Slow down the tracking speed if your cursor whizzes by too quickly, or speed it up if the cursor is sluggish. Clicking 1 to 1 means the cursor will move just like your finger--if you move an inch on the pad, the cursor moves an inch on the screen. You can also change the double-click speed to accommodate a slow thumb. If a typist has motor issues that inhibit quick movements off the keys, the result can be Delete Until Repeat: There are lots of software and hardware adaptations you can buy to overcome more significant impairments, but these "freebies" may be enough to overcome more minor challenges.
You know your Mac is user-friendly, but did you know it can also accommodate some special needs? Adaptations for vision and physical access are built into every Macintosh. Below are some quick adaptions you can make to aid you and/or your students on the computer.
If the fonts on your folders and documents are too small, iBook and iMac users can go to the Control Panel and pull down to Appearance. Click on Fonts, then select a different Views Font and/or larger font size. PowerBook 1400 users should go to Views under the Control Panel to make this change. The change in font size takes place immediately.
If you need to make your mouse movements more visible, you can select fast or slow mouse tracks (shadowing of your mouse movements) from the Mouse menu (under Control Panel).
KEYBOARDING
Are you trackpad impaired? Here are some minor adjustments you can make that may help.
unwanted repeated keystrokesssssss. You can overcome this by going to Control Panel and
pulling down to Keyboard. Here you can make two adjustments:
Key Repeat Rate:
Fast means when you depress a key, the key prints the character in rapid succession. This is really helpful if you use your Delete key to wipe out a word, section, or line of text. Its a real problem for folks who cant release a key immediately on striking. Medium speed is best for most typists.
Slow means you can hold a key down for several seconds before the character is typed again, good for those with slower release times.
Short means that repeated keystrokes will occur immediately after striking the key, unless the key is let up immediately.
Long provides a pause, then repeated keystrokes occur at the selected Key Repeat Rate.
If you dont want any repeated keystrokes, no matter how long a key is depressed, select Off. Remember, though, that youll have to hit the Delete Key repeatedly to erase a word or line of text.
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