Google Chrome is getting a couple of new features to enhance the usability of the browser. These updates are introduced as a part of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) to help people with visual impairments. The first change will be a benefit to anyone who uses Chrome on their desktop to open scanned PDFs, while the second one aligns the Page Zoom experience in Chrome for Android with the desktop version.
Google Chrome’s Page Zoom feature: Here’s how it works
On the desktop version of Google Chrome, users can use the Page Zoom feature to increase the text size without changing a page's layout. However, on the app, increasing the zoom level also alters the page layout, making the webpage appear in an enlarged form. Google is now addressing this problem and adding Page Zoom on Chrome for Android, which works in the same way as its desktop counterpart.
This feature is now being rolled out in a phased manner, and users can try out the updated zoom feature by tapping the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of Chrome and then selecting how far they want to increase the size of the text.
Google Chrome’s Optical Character Recognition tool: Key details
After a beta release, Chrome’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool on desktop has now been fully rolled out. It can automatically detect text within scanned PDF documents, allowing users to highlight, copy, and search through the content with ease, just like any other webpage. This also allows screen readers to read the content of such scanned PDFs aloud with ease.
Moreover, Google has also announced an update to the AI-powered feature, Expressive Captions. Previously, it used the real-time captioning capability in a video to auto generate suitable captions. Now, the tool will capture what someone says and how they say it. For example, if a sports announcer is commenting on an “amazing shot” or when someone isn’t simply saying “no” or “nooooo,” the Chrome user will also start to see new labels for sounds, similar to when a person is whistling or saying loud speech.
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