Mar. 20--Lexmark International on Thursday announced a new application designed to make many of its printers easier to use by the visually impaired.

The Lexmark Accessibility Solution focuses on the Lexington printer maker's multifunction printers, which print, scan, copy and sometimes fax.

With the new software, people can do on their computers all the things they normally would do on the printer's touch screen panel.

The printer software works with a number of computer accessibility products such as GW Micro's Window-Eyes, as well as industry standard speech recognition software, Lexmark said.

Users send their jobs to the printers using the special software, use an accessible number keypad to enter the job number, and the printouts are available or documents scanned and so forth.

"This new application from Lexmark will help to level the playing field for low-vision and no-vision individuals," Jenny Tyree, vocational rehabilitation administrator for the Kentucky Office for the Blind, said in a statement. "In the past, visually impaired workers have been unable to be competitive when seeking jobs that require the use of general office equipment."

For more information on the software, visit www.lexmark.com/accessibility.

Reach Scott Sloan at (859) 231-1447 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 1447.

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