How to access Read&Write for Google Chrome & OrbitNote (PDF Reader)

Rhianon Gutierrez Updated by Rhianon Gutierrez

What is Read&Write for Google Chrome and OrbitNote (PDF Reader) and who has access?

Read&Write for Google Chrome™ is a Chrome extension that provides personalized support to make documents, web pages, and common file types in Google Drive including Google Docs, PDFs, & ePubs more accessible. It offers a range of powerful support tools to help you gain confidence with reading, writing, studying and research, including text-to-speech, speech-to-text, word prediction, text and picture dictionaries, collecting highlights, recording voice notes, and simplifying and summarizing text.

OrbitNote is a PDF Reader Chrome extension that uses Read&Write's toolbar to allow you to more easily access and engage with PDFs. It also includes built-in OCR (optical character recognition) capabilities to make your PDFs accessible.

Read&Write and OrbitNote are available to all BPS staff and students.

Extension

Icon

Where to use this tool

Read&Write for Google Chrome

Works with Google Docs, Slides, & Forms, Google Classroom, websites in the Chrome browser, Brightspace (BPSLearns)

OrbitNote (PDF Reader)

Works with PDF and ePub files Google Drive, Google Classroom, websites in the Chrome browser, Brightspace (BPSLearns)

Screenshot Reader

Allows you to OCR scan text on the screen to be read aloud. You can use this tool on a website, PDF, or Google Slides presentation where you might encounter text in an image such as in tables, charts, maps, and diagrams.

How do I access Read&Write, OrbitNote, and Screenshot Reader?

These extensions are available to all BPS staff and students as long as they are using: (1) their Boston Public Schools email and (2) the Chrome browser. You can find these icons in your Chrome browser once they are installed. If they are not installed, click on the installation links below.

Install Read&Write.

Install OrbitNote.

Install Screenshot Reader.

What devices are compatible with these extensions?

Read&Write, OrbitNote, and Screenshot Reader are accessible via Chromebooks and laptops that are running the latest version of the Chrome browser.

A feature is not responding. What should I do?

Try out these tips:

  • Refresh the page
  • Clear browsing history and cookies
  • Make sure your Chrome browser is up to date (running latest version)

Where can I learn more about Read&Write?

Where can I learn more about OrbitNote?

Who can I contact if I have additional questions?

How did we do?

How to access Google Classroom (Students)

How to archive a class in Google Classroom

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