A new plug-in for Word 2007 will help visually-impaired people navigate complex documents.

The free utility, available early next year, will allow documents based on Microsoft’s new Open XML format to be converted to one called Daisy XML, developed originally to facilitate the navigation of audio books.

It will initially be of most use to people who produce talking books, designed for PCs or specialist devices, in which speech is synchronised wth large-print text, says Rob Longstaff, operations manager at the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

He explained that many partially-sighted people want to be able to see a large-print version of what is being read. “For instance, a student might need to know how to spell a word, and so needs to see as well as hear it.”

But, without the visual cues most of us take for granted, poorly sighted people find it hard to find their way round documents and have to reply on sound cues. Daisy, short for Digital Access Information System, is an industry standard that that helps set these up by flagging features such as headers and footers that can act as navigation aids.

The new Word 2007 plug-in is a joint project between Microsoft and the Daisy organisation, a consortium of non-profit organisations and talking libraries.

Longstaff said it should speed up the production of talking books but in the longer term text-to-speech utilities that read letters and other documents could be made smart enough to take advantage of Daisy XML.

At least 8 million people in the UK are 'print-disabled' and rely on synthetic speech to navigate electronic text, according to Julia Howell director of accessibility at digital design agency Fortune Cookie.

She said the Daisy plug-in will make it easier to make complex timetables and itineraries on travel sites more accessible to “anyone who chooses to navigate the web using sound.”