Alternative Formats

Alternative Formats for textbooks & course materials

The Office for Disability Equity collaborates with Accessible Technology Services (ATS) at Information Technology (IT) to provide eligible students with alternative formats for course materials. Alternative formats include accessible (text-based) PDF, EPUB, plain text (.txt), rich text (.rtf), Braille, and Word documents. 

How to request alternative formats

Students approved for alternative formats may request conversion services from ATS.

To submit your conversion request:

Questions about conversion services

Contact
Accessible Technology Services (ATS)
Social Science Building Room 126
Email: ats@umontana.edu

IT OCR Converter Service

The Information Technology offers the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) document converter service to convert image-based PDFs to text-based Word documents.

EPUB

EPUB is the industry standard for digital publication. EPUB provides a high degree of accessibility and optimizations. Users can change the color, font size, and background color of the display, and the book will reorganize itself on a device. EPUB can be read on Android, Apple, Windows, and most other ebook readers. 

How to find eTextbooks in EPUB

The VitalSource Bookshelf app includes text-to-speech, search and navigation, and study tools. 

Other popular reading apps 
DAISY Consortium's Inclusive Publishing has reviews of popular reading apps, including Digital Editions, Edge, and iBooks
Thorium Reader (free) for PC 
Dolphin Easy Reader (free) for iOS and Android 
Voice Dream Reader (iOS) 

When interim accommodations required while waiting for alternative formats

If ATS cannot convert the book within 10 business days of receiving the file or cutting the book, ATS notifies students so that students can consider asking for interim accommodations. Students should contact their ODE consultant to obtain interim accommodations. 
Examples of interim accommodations include:

  • A reader from the Office for Disability Equity. 
  • Requesting a reasonable extension of the course deadline for an assigned reading from the instructor.