Large/Small Print Web Page Viewers

[Robert J. Tiess]

Some time ago I created a Javascript service
(http://www.thrall.org/largeprt.htm) to help
users view web text in large print.  While
this service has proved helpful to many, it
was somewhat complicated in use and limited
to browsers supporting Javascript.

I have since developed a CGI script that
attempts process font tags in HTML and render
a target page in large print.  This script is
by no means perfect, but it has demonstrated
great promise in these past few weeks of
testing.  I would now like to begin making
this available to the public.  The service
can be accessed through ExpanSearch:

	http://www.domaindlx.com/expansearch

ExpanSearch is a CGI multisearch tool with
some additional search engine resource links.
The script is further down the page under
BIGtext.  Click on it and enter an URL to see
text of that page in large print.  It has
worked with the majority of web pages I've
tested it on and is known to work in Explorer
and Navigator 3.x or higher.

You will also find a smallText viewer here,
which is something that can be used to shrink
a page for optimal viewing/printing purposes.
A third web page viewer, TextOnly, is also
available, and this allows you to view the
text of a web page.

Again, none of these scripts are perfect, but
they have already helped several users either
see pages more clearly or fit more text onto
the script or printed page.  I would be happy
to make the Perl scripts freely available to
anyone who asks so you may implement local
editions of these services to conserve
bandwidth at my end.  I would not recommend
running these scripts on large pages until
you mount and execute the scripts locally.

As time permits, I'll refine the scripts and
make them available at the URL above.  Your
feedback is most welcome.  Feel free to write
to me at rjtiess at warwick.net.


Robert Tiess
http://members.tripod.com/~rtiess