Editing a resume when WYSIWYG doesn't work

June 28, 2011 10:02 AM

I can't see my computer screen, and I want to be able to edit my resume. What Windows-based software would let me control the layout of text on a page without having to look at it?

I'm blind, so I use my computer with screen reading software called JAWS for Windows. It's good at reading text out loud, but not so good at saying how the text is formatted, what fonts are being used, and all those visual things. Essentially, if it isn't actual text on the screen, I don't hear about it.

For editing my resume, what I'd like is some sort of program that lets me enter text into fields, and then does the formatting of the text for me. Failing that, some sort of text editor which has an option to display the formatting codes on screen -- something like how they are in html, but with enough formatting options to make a flashy resume.

I've looked at Easy Resume Creator Pro, which seemed like it might be just what I need, except it wasn't designed with accessibility in mind. I can't tab from one field to the next using the keyboard, for example.

Please give me suggestions.

Does anybody use a database program for their resume? Maybe something like that would let me apply formatting rules to fields of a particular type. Or, because web browsers are accessible with speech, some sort of html form that lets you enter data about your work history and generates a nicely formatted resume from it could work also.

I'm all ears.

posted by Net Prophet to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Do you have any familiarity with LaTeX? It's a document markup system, most commonly used for scientific paper authoring, but it could be used for resumes as well. You enter text and markup and it gets compiled into a pdf. This page has ten LaTex resume templates with pdf's of the finished documents.
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:23 AM on June 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do you use Microsoft Word? You can create documents from templates, and there are a lot of prefilled resumes. You could replace the text in the template with your own. They have several such as Writer resume, Retail sales resume, etc.

I'm in Word 2007. If I create a new document from the menu - or using the keyboard shortcut Alt - F - N, there's a list of templates. If I hit Tab 5 times I get to the search box for the templates, and if I search for Resume I get hundreds of templates, most of which look pretty good.
posted by beyond_pink at 10:36 AM on June 28, 2011

Best answer: Yes, definitely LaTeX is what you want, as everything is completely controlled by markup/macros in a plain text source file that can be edited with any editor, with an emphasis on the separation of content and presentation. But LaTeX is more of a general framework, there is no one official "Resume" template or format, rather you have a number of different templates from different people, so there are lots to choose from so for example if the ones in PercussivePaul's link aren't doing it for you then try this or this or this, etc.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:43 AM on June 28, 2011

Thirding LaTeX. However, it can be fiddly, and while it usually formats stuff beautifully, I have occasional struggles to make a document look how I want.
posted by Metasyntactic at 10:58 AM on June 28, 2011

Latex as much as i like it could be tough. I had a quick look and there do not seem to be any jaws scripts available other than for braille output. ( http://latex-access.sourceforge.net/ ).
Have you tried asking on one of the access email lists , i had a look on the email list archive i am part of ( [e-mail] ) and there is one mention of using latex from 2007.
Templates in Word are probably going to be the best supported tool.
posted by stuartmm at 11:15 AM on June 28, 2011

I love LaTeX, but even after marking something up I still have to print the thing out and see what it looks like. I really can't imagine doing it, uh, blind, particularly not when you are new to LaTeX.

I think the only practical option is to email the document to a sighted friend and ask them to comment on it (or perhaps to have them edit the document with you there to give instruction).
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:10 PM on June 28, 2011

The National Federation of the Blind has a technology center that provides consultation about just this kind of thing. I've had colleagues approach them about how to use statistical software with a JAWS interface and they had some really good suggestions. Might be worth a call.
posted by goggie at 1:57 PM on June 28, 2011

I have an HTML resume if you are familiar with HTML and text editing. MeMail me if you want a copy.
posted by chairface at 4:11 PM on June 28, 2011

I'm going to n-th LaTeX, though, like everyone else has said, it might be too steep a learning curve for just your résumé.

I did know someone with limited vision who found LaTeX quite useful. I believe he preferred it to Word because he had more confidence knowing what things would look like (since you can specify everything). I think it was also the best thing he could find for math and chemistry texts. (LaTeX uses a lot of backslashes and braces, plus dollar signs for math mode, so it must have been fairly tedious to listen to, but it got the job done.) I assume he LaTeXed a résumé at some point. I don't know that I have a current email address for him, but MeMail me if you want me to try and track him down.

If you have an afternoon to mess with it, you can probably install LaTeX and modify an example résumé or a template easily enough.

This is turning into an ad for LaTeX rather than something immediately helpful, but if it sounds like something that might be useful for you, you might want to check out the blindmath mailing list. I imagine that's where most of the blind-related LaTeX discussion happens.
posted by hoyland at 4:16 PM on June 28, 2011

I advise you not to use LaTeX. It can be very difficult to tell whether your input produced the output you had in mind without visually inspecting the result. It produces PDFs which will generally not screen-read in the correct order.

If you are comfortable with HTML, you can use wkhtmltopdf to compile an HTML file into a conventional resume PDF. Here is an example.
posted by Phssthpok at 4:18 PM on June 28, 2011

Have you tried looking at the different Speech and Sound Schemes in the Configuration Manager of Jaws. They have settings that will announce font and attribute changes and some indentation information which will work in Word. One of the schemes might get you more info than you're getting now. Upgrade to Jaws 12 if you're using Jaws 9 or less.

And you should have someone proofread your resume anyway, even if you were sighted. I'm always surprised what kind of errors I miss even though I might read over my documents several times.

full disclosure: I'm not blind, but I'm a Jaws scripter and know a lot about Jaws.
posted by rsclark at 8:27 PM on June 29, 2011