Sora & Accessibility

A delightful, inclusive experience for all users.

Customizable read settings: typeface, line spacing and more.

Ebook reader settings

Adjust audiobook playback speed.

Adjustable playback speed

Pinch and zoom to read comic and magazine text.

Zoom

Adjust font sizes; Read in bright, sepia, or dark mode.

Font size & colors

High contrast mode

High contrast mode

Screen reader support

Visually impaired students can use screen readers such as ChromeVox, VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, and Android Accessibility Suite to browse, borrow, and enjoy ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines in Sora.

Chromevox icon Apple voiceover icon NVDA icon JAWS screenreader icon Android accessibility suite icon
Keyboard shortcuts and navigation

Students can use their keyboard’s Tab and Enter keys and spacebar to navigate the entirety of the app. Sora also supports keyboard shortcuts for easy ebook navigation and quick access to frequently used features. With these shortcuts, students can page forward and backward in books, search a book’s content, start and stop audiobooks, add bookmarks, and more.

Adjustable text size

Sora uses a device’s built-in text size setting and scales the text in the app accordingly. Users can manually adjust the text size for ebooks in the reader and expand the range of sizes to include larger accessibility sizes, if needed.

Zoom feature

In magazines and fixed-layout ebooks (like picture books, Read-Alongs, and comics), users can zoom in on content to magnify images and text.

Accessible page structure and components

Sora’s design helps screen reader users understand its structure so they can navigate it quickly. Sora properly identifies important images with alt text and tells screen readers to ignore decorative images. Headers and landmarks identify standard regions of the site, and skip links let students skip recurring sections to easily access what they need. Sora also labels specific components, so students know when they’re engaging with text fields, checkboxes, drop-down menus, and more.

High contrast

Students can adjust the appearance of the entire app, including ebooks and audiobooks, using High Contrast Mode.

Customizable ebook reader display

Students can tailor an ebook’s display to suit their specific reading preferences. Options include four lighting styles, more than ten typeface styles, and controls to adjust line spacing, justification, and text weight.

Adjustable playback speed

Students can choose from 48 different playback speeds in Sora’s audiobook player, slowing narration to 0.6x or speeding it up to 3.0x the original speed.

For more information about accessibility in Sora, visit Sora Help or check out OverDrive’s accessibility statement.

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