Today I am reviewing the IRISPen Express 6. This assistive technology device is a handheld scanner which you can use to highlight text to be entered into an application like a word document. It promises to save time and be up to 100% accurate. Let’s try it out!
After installing the IRISPen software onto your computer, all you have to do to get started is plug the device into a USB port and open the application. Next, you will need to decide where you want your scanned text to go. I wanted my text to go into a document, so I opened one in Microsoft Word.
One of the first things I did was turn off the beep sound the computer makes every time you finish scanning a line… that gets old fast! You can do so by clicking on the bell icon labeled “Beep sound” in the application.
By default, the device is set up for scanning regular text in English. You can change this to a different language or if you wish to scan an image. You can also specify small print, numbers, and various other options by using the application Wizard. Once your device has the correct settings for what you’re scanning, press the pen onto the paper and roll it over your text.
I learned right away that this pen takes some practice. You have to hold it just like you would hold a pencil, at an angle where the tip of the pen lays flat. If you don’t hold it just right, your pen won’t scan properly and you will end up with a line of jibberish.
I recommend having the Image Quality Check (under Options) open while you scan so you can see how accurately you are scanning. Here is how my scan looked and how it typed:
This took me about four times to scan correctly, but the you can see in the little Image Quality Check box that when I held the pen correctly and concentrated on going in a straight line, it picked up all the words.
The IRISPen also has two buttons that can serve a number of functions, such as Tab and Enter, or Erase Last Scan.
Some things to remember:
- Roll the pen over your text at a steady rate.
- The pen will pick up to 12″ of text; it will cut off after that length.
- The device will NOT pick up content printed in yellow.
- If you are left-handed, you can scan right to left by changing the settings under the Options menu.
For more information, check out IRIS website.
That is some seriously amazing technology!
The right/left business is backward.
A right-hander hides the line ahead of the pen when he goes to the right. Why not set it for a lefty and scan from right to left? That way he can see where he must move it to stay on the line.
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I monitor news of this sort (via Google Alerts for AT)and post about them on the AFB’s Tech Talk message board. Unless you can tell me how a badly sighted person can use it, I won’t post about this.
Please don’t tell me without first having a badly sighted person try it out.
We are told about all the wonderful things AT devices will do and they get filed under ‘device type’. I would like to see a bunch of ‘task’ files. How the impaired read vaious things and under different conditions. My Acrobat is fair for some things and awful for a newspaper. Ineed a file of things that work well there.
INDATA is impressive. Thank you
BTW, The text in this entry box is small and faint compared to the copy on the rest of the page because it does not use the font I have set in my IE8 for incoming text. This is common; Microsoft is also an offender.
I wish I could tell people how to fix it. Recently I used one that had a “repeater” box that showed, large and fat, what I typed as soon as I hit a letter. Awkward, but a real help. I am now using Fn+Spacebar to enlarge to 125%, but it is still ‘wimpy’.
Be of good cheer, G F Mueden NY NY ===gm===
We agree, Stephen!
G F Mueden,
Thank you for the feedback. We are not making any recommendations as to who should use this device, but instead wanted to share a brief overview of how it functions. This post was tagged under “Learning Disabilities” because it has been suggested that it MAY assist with learning related tasks such as reading and writing.
We understand that WordPress as a blogging platform does not live up to most accessibility standards, however as a nonprofit organization we are limited in what we can use.
you all should try the TopScan Text Scanner , its half the price of irispen and i belive its a better scanner.
you can buy it at this web site : http://www.text-scanner.com
i also seen the TopScan Text Scanner sold on Amazon.
Happy Scanning