Workplace Reader is a Be My Eyes tool that reads documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and forms aloud with structured navigation — designed for BLV employees who work with documents daily.
Note: Workplace Reader is part of the Be My Eyes Workplace subscription.
What Workplace Reader does
- Reads the full text of documents with natural-sounding voice
- Lets you navigate by heading, paragraph, page, or section
- Handles PDFs, Word documents (.docx), and common image formats
- Works with scanned documents (OCR built in)
- Integrates with your existing screen reader
How to use Workplace Reader
- Open Be My Eyes on your computer and click Workplace Reader.
- Click Open Document and select a file from your computer, or drag and drop the file into the window.
- The document will load and begin reading from the first page.
- Use the navigation controls to move through the document:
- Arrow keys — move by paragraph
- Ctrl+H — jump to the next heading
- Ctrl+Page Down/Up — move between pages
Working with scanned PDFs
Workplace Reader includes OCR (optical character recognition) for scanned documents. When you open a scanned PDF, Reader will automatically process it before reading — this may take a few seconds for longer documents.
Adjusting the reading voice
Go to Settings → Reader Settings to adjust:
- Reading speed
- Voice and language
- Whether to announce headings and page numbers