Texthelp

What is Texthelp?

Texthelp is a collection of several digital literacy support tools that help with everyday tasks like reading text out loud, converting PDFs and images to a readable format, creating voice notes in mp3 files, making Math contents accessible and more. The following video shows a quick highlights of the tools in action. There is no audio in the video.

At USF, we recommend the following three tools that are part of the TextHelp application group.

 

Read and Write

Read&Write - Making Documents Easy to Work with

 

Orbit Note

OrbitNote - PDF Document Authoring Tool

Equatio

Equatio - Math equation Writing Tool

How to Begin

All three applications give you the toolbar like the one below for Read&Write. Each toolbar will offer different functionalities on the document you would be working on.

Tool bar for Read and Write

Both Read&Write and Equatio are available on multiple different platforms such as desktop on PC, Mac, iPad, Android and a web browser extension.

OrbitNote is only available as a browser extension.

For easier integration, we recommend you to use Google Chrome browser.

How to Install 

Before installation, you must be logged in to MyUSF on a web browser.
Also, use MyUSF login whenever you are prompted after the installation. The product license is verified for the USF users.

  1. Click Read&Write to go to the download page.
  2. Scroll down a little to the bottom and find the button “Try Read&Write”. 
  3. Choose the platform you want to install Read&Write on. Read and Write download
  4. When choosing Google Chrome, you will then be able to see the “Add to Chrome” button. Please note that without the USFCA login, you will not be able to get it directly from the chrome web store. Add to Chrome button
  5. You will get the confirmation as below. Confirmation popup for installation
  6. To activate Read&Write and begin using it, please go to How to Use Read&Write document. 

 Please note, Read&Write could take a few seconds to load.

  1. Click OrbitNote to go to the download page. 

  2. Scroll down a little to the bottom and find the button “Try it for Free”. OrbitNote download page
  3. When prompted on the next screen, be sure to choose the usfca login name. Select usf profile from google popup
  4. From the dashboard, click the “Install Extension” button. Please note, if you don’t click the “Install Extension” button, you won’t find the extension on your browser. This is an additional step that’s different from the other tools. OrbitNote dashboard showing Install Extension button
  5. Click "Add to Chrome" button.Add to Chrome button for OrbitNote
  6. You will get a confirmation popup window and you can find OrbitNote on the Extensions list. Confirmation popup for installation
  7. To go back to the OrbitNote Dashboard, click the extensions icon and select OrbitNote from the list. Chrome Extensions list
  8. From the Dashboard, Click Choose File or Open PDF from Google Drive. OrbitNote Dashboard showing options to start with a document
  9. When choosing Open PDF from Google Drive, enter the name of PDF in the search field. Orbit Note won’t be able to pull up other documents than PDF. search bar in OrbitNote
  10. To return to the dashboard from the document view, click the three dots icon and select Dashboard. go back to dashboard
  11. Proceed to How to use OrbitNote document that provides detailed information on each tool function.

Please note, OrbitNote could take a few seconds to load.

  1. Click Equatio to go to the download page.
  2. Scroll down a little to the bottom and find the button “Try Equatio”. Equatio download page
  3. Choose the platform you want to install Equatio on.
  4. If you choose Google Chrome, you will see the “Add to Chrome” button on the next page. Add to Chrome button
  5. You will get the confirmation as below. installation confirmation
  6. Proceed with the Starting Equatio page that provides detailed explanation on each tool function.

Please note, Equatio could take a few seconds to load.