Google Docs Screen Reader: Converting Word and PDFs into Google Docs

Hello, my name is Ricky Enger. And today, we're going to check out how to save PDF files and Microsoft Word documents in Google Docs. We're using the Chrome browser along with NVDA as our screen reader, but things are going to be pretty similar no matter which browser and screen reader we're using.

In a previous workshop, we learned how to save our Google Docs files in other formats. And now, we're gonna do just the opposite. Aside from being able to access our files in Google Docs from anywhere, there's a really awesome feature in Google Docs that's especially useful for PDFs.

Let's find out how it works. First, we're going to open a page that we haven't been introduced to yet in this series. So we're in Google Chrome, and we'll type drive.google.com.

Screen Reader: Drive.google.com, select table Google Docs sharing file publicly, Google Docs row not selected.

Ricky: So we're in a list of our recent files. Very similar to what we'd find on our Google Docs home page, but turns out we're on a different page entirely. This is called our Google Drive home page. Google Drive is essentially like a hard drive in the cloud, where we can have many types of files stored.

We can store photos, videos, other types of Google content, such as Google slides and Google sheets. We can even create folders. Yeah, Google Drive is really cool. We won't have time to explore it in detail in this series, but Google Drive is essential for what we're doing today.

We're going to use it to upload a file from our computer so that we can then save that file in Google Docs. That might sound like kind of a hassle, but it's definitely worth it because we're going to solve a really annoying problem that crops up from time to time. So here's the situation. There's this great new restaurant. And it's so exciting to check out the menu beforehand to see all the tasty items to choose from. They've conveniently posted their menu on the website as a PDF. So we download it, and we open it, and then.

Screen Reader: And alert, empty document document. This document appears to be empty. It may be a scanned image that needs OCR, or it may be a malformed document.

Ricky: Oh, no. This document is basically a picture of the menu that hasn't been converted into text that our screen meter can handle. This can happen a lot with PDFs and it's really frustrating. That's okay though, because here comes Google Docs to the rescue.

Let's go back over to our Chrome browser with the Google Drive homepage open, and we'll upload this document. All we have to do is press shift + U as an upload.

Screen Reader: Open dialogue file name file name combo box collapsed, and it all plus end blank.

Ricky: Okay, now we're ready to browse for the file that we'd like to upload. Right now, Google Chrome is looking in the downloads folder, which is fine because that's where our PDF is.

However, we can use this browse dialogue to point to any folder where we've stored a file to be uploaded. We'll just navigate the dialogue in the same way as we do when opening a file in any other program. Okay? So we'll shift+tab a couple of times until we get to our list of files.

Screen Reader: Items view list Today grouping expanded Jekyll Hyde taphouse grill dot PDF, not selected one of 10.

Ricky: That's what we want. So we'll press enter here.

Screen Reader: Selected my drive. Google drive, Google Chrome, maximized uploading one item button, minimize button close, clickable starting upload, button cancel all, file upload Jekyll Hyde taphouse grill dot PDF button cancel upload, one upload complete.

Ricky: Good. We hear our file is uploaded now. What's next? Let's tab until we hear show file location button. So we'll tab.

Screen Reader: Minimize button.

Ricky: And again.

Screen Reader: Close button.

Ricky: And again.

Screen Reader: File upload, Jekyll Hyde taphouse grille dot PDF grouping

Ricky: And, one more time.

Screen Reader: Show file location button.

Ricky: Great. We'll the press our space bar now.

Screen Reader: Locating, table Jekyll Hyde tap house grill dot PDF PDF row.

Ricky: All right, we're almost there. We've just been taken to the place in Google Drive where our file has been uploaded and stored. So, we'll press our applications key or shift + F10 if we don't have one of those. This is going to bring up a menu with various options for the file that we're focused on.

Screen Reader: Menu loading menu sub menu, preview one of 15.

Ricky: Okay. And now we'll just keep pressing our down arrow until we find the open with option.

Screen Reader: Open with sub menu two of 15.

Ricky: And there it is. So we'll press our right arrow to expand the menu.

Screen Reader: Google Docs, one of five.

Ricky: And that's what we want. So we'll press enter here.

Screen Reader: Google Docs, Google Chrome, application, braille support enabled on page one, appetizers shareables Bavarian pretzel minus 12, warm Bavarian pretzel brushed with butter and sea salt.

Ricky: Hey. This doesn't sound like an empty document. In fact, it sounds like the start of a menu full of delicious things. And now that we've opened this in Google Docs, we don't have to do anything else. It's a document in the Google Docs format, just like others that we've created ourselves. How cool is that?

Best of all, we can use this same technique for other files that we'd like to upload and access in Google Docs. So for example, if we have a Microsoft Word document, and we'd like to work on it in Google Docs, we'll just upload it to our Google Drive, use our applications key or shift + F10 to bring up the menu and select open with. We'll choose Google Docs. And there it is.

I'm Ricky Enger. And I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today. Learning about opening PDFs and other files in Google Docs. See you next time.