NVDA tutorials

The following tutorials cover the NVDA screen reader basics, general navigation in Windows - using Windows shortcut keys, and examples of where you would use NVDA commands in commonly used computer programmes.
You will need to be very familiar with your keyboard.
Please learn where all of your keys are, so as to be able to locate them quickly.

NVDA testimonies and stories

There are many testimonies and stories from NVDA users around the world about how the NVDA screen reader has been used in their every day life; whether it is used at home, at school, for studies or at work.

The link to the web page can be found at https://www.nvaccess.org/testimonials/

Training material and phone support for NVDA from the NV Access online shop

Are you aware that NV Access have put together an online Shop where you can buy
training material for the NVDA screen reader? You can also get phone support.

Please stay tuned for more training material as it becomes available.
For more information please visit the NV Access Online Shop at the following link https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

NVDA expert certification

To find an NVDA certified expert near you, please visit the following link https://certification.nvaccess.org/. The certification page contains the official list of NVDA certified individuals from around the world, who have sat and successfully passed the NVDA expert exam.

Have you got a good grasp on the NVDA screen reader? Have you got what it takes to sit the NVDA expert exam? You can test your knowledge for free. If you pass the exam in the required time frame, then you can purchase an official certificate and be acknowledged on the above webpage under the list of worldwide NVDA experts.

Find out about NVDA progress via the nvaccess In Process blog

To find out what is happening within the NVDA project, visit “In-Process” - the new NV Access blog,
where you can be informed of happenings within the organisation, staff and of course, NVDA.
http://www.nvaccess.org/category/in-process/

Click on any of the links in the table below, to visit other NVDA related webpages that may be of interest to you.

NVDA related webpages


NVDA tutorials

NVDA screen
reader




How to install additional
NVDA components

















NVDA screen reader related resources

For a variety of NVDA related resources from around the world, please visit the NVDA screen reader related resources page at the following link
NVDA screen reader related resources

Promotional video on the NVDA screen reader

If you are unsure what a screen reader is, please click on the following link to listen to a promotional video on the NVDA screen reader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks7AwV_uxO0&feature=youtu.be   Please feel free to pass this information onto others that you think may be interested or who may want to find out more.

Before listening to/or reading the following tutorials, please make sure you get your copy of NVDA

Before looking at the following tutorials, make sure you have downloaded a copy of the NVDA screen reader. To get the latest copy, please visit http://www.nvaccess.org/ and go to the downloads link. Download the programme and set it up. Down the track, if you feel you have benefited from NVDA, then donations (no matter how big or small) are always welcome to keep the project free for everyone.

Notification of add-on updates

From NVDA 2024.3, the Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup. This will only be done once a day.

If you do not want to hear when there are add-on updates, the hearing of the message can be disabled under the settings part of NVDA, then add-on store, then when you are there, tab to update notifications. It is a combo box; then change that to disable. Make sure you then apply and ok your settings for it to take affect.

Please note:
◦ NVDA checks daily for add-on updates.
◦ Only updates within the same channel will be checked (for example: installed beta add-ons will only notify for updates in the beta channel).

NVDA folder is now created for portable copies of NVDA

Before NVDA 2024.3 if you wanted to make a portable copy of NVDA on a USB stick, if you did not create a folder first for the files to go into, they would be splattered onto the USB stick. If you were a bit more experienced you would create a folder called NVDA for the files to go into.

From NVDA 2024.3, when you go to make a portable copy of NVDA, make sure the check box is checked below the browse mode button when creating a portable copy of NVDA.  So then it is a matter of pointing it towards the area you want it to be created in (for example E:\ drive) and as long as the check box is checked, the NVDA folder will be created on that USB stick with all the files in it.

If you do not want the folder created for you, just uncheck that check box and then you can create your own folder name instead in the editable area; but make sure you point it towards the area you wish to do it in (for example E:\), then specify a folder name like NVDA 2024.3

Then, all the files will go into that folder.
 
Please note: A warning message will inform you if you try writing to a non-empty directory.

New key commands

From NVDA 2024.3 you will be able to do the following:

Added unassigned commands for vertical and horizontal scrolling of the mouse wheel, to enhance navigation on web pages and apps with dynamic content, such as Dism++.

Please see the input gestures section in NVDA, then when opened, locate the mouse section and look for the following: Scroll down at the mouse position, Scroll left at the mouse position, Scroll right at the mouse position, Scroll up at the mouse position and then assign your gestures for each.

Sound split

From NVDA 2024.2 onwards you will be able to do the following:

This will allow splitting NVDA sounds into one channel (for example left channel) while sounds from all other applications are placed in the other channel (example right channel).
This can be toggled by using the NVDA key + Alt key + the letter S.
You should hear the following in your headset (for example NVDA on the left and applications on the right; NVDA on the left and applications in both channels; sound split disabled).

The volume of the other applications can be adjusted by using the NVDA key + Alt key + Page Up key  and the NVDA key + Alt key + Page Down key.
The sound of the other applications can be muted with the NVDA key + Alt key + Delete key.

Minimum and last tested for add-ons

From NVDA 2024.2 you will be able to check the following in the Add-on store.
Locate the Add-on you want to know about, then tab until you get to the other details area.
You will then be able to find out the following for that Add-on.

Author: Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@gmail.com>, Luke Davis <XLTechie@newanswertech.com>
ID: addonUpdater
Installed version: 24.2.4
Minimum NVDA version: 2023.1
Last tested NVDA version: 2024.1
Channel: External
Homepage: https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/addonUpdater.en.html
It can also be found under the installed add-ons tab on the add-on you want to find out more about; then just tab until you get to the other details section for that add-on.

Community reviews for add-ons

From NVDA 2024.2 you will be able to do the following; The community reviews action will be available in all tabs of the store.
You will need to locate the actions button, open it, then go down to community reviews menu, then press the Enter key. After that, you will be able to read the reviews.

New Quick Navigation commands

From NVDA 2024.2 there is now a new quick navigation command for NVDA. Press the letter P for jumping to the next/previous text paragraph in browse mode in NVDA.

New unassigned Quick Navigation commands

From NVDA 2024.2 there will be new unassigned Quick Navigation commands, which can be used to jump to the next/previous item/s as follows:
▪ figure
▪ vertically aligned paragraph
▪ menu item
▪ toggle button
▪ progress bar
▪ math formula
▪ same style text
▪ different style text
To see these new input gestures, you need to have a webpage open and be focused on it.  Then, go to the input gestures menu in NVDA and press the Enter key. When the different sections come up, locate the browse mode section. It is then a matter of assigning the gestures that you wish to choose for the commands that you wish to use.

Decrease and increase the current setting of the synth settings ring in a larger step

From NVDA 2024.2 you will be able to do the following in larger steps of 20 instead of 5. 
Some examples could be increasing the speed rate from 30 to 50 in one step, instead of 4 steps of increments of 5 and volume etcetera.
The following shortcut keys below can be used.
Desktop: NVDA key + Ctrl key + Page Up key  or NVDA key + Ctrl key + Page Down key.
Laptop: NVDA key + Ctrl key + Shift key + Page Up key  or the NVDA key + Ctrl key + Shift key + Page Down key.

Commands have been added to jump first, last, forward and backward through the synth settings ring

From NVDA 2024.2 you will be able to set the following setting. You will be able to set the first and last gesture in the synth settings ring. These have no assigned gesture.
Please see the input gestures menu and locate the speech section. RE: The  2 gestures, you  are  looking for the "Set the first value of the current setting" in the synth settings ring and "Set the last value of the current setting" in the synth settings ring, then assign your gesture for each.

A new braille mode called "display speech output" has been added

From NVDA 2024.2 there is a new braille mode called "display speech output" which has been added.
When active, the braille display shows exactly what NVDA speaks.
It can be toggled on or off by pressing the NVDA key + Alt key + the letter T, or via the braille settings dialog.

The Help menu in NVDA has had 2 new items added to it

From NVDA 2024.1 the following 2 extra menus have been added to the help section of NVDA. These are listed below:

There is now a help training and support menu which points to the following heading NEED SUPPORT WITH YOUR DOWNLOAD? Below it you will find, FREE USER GUIDE, NVDA QUICK START GUIDE, TRAINING, EMAIL SUPPORT, NVDA SUPPORT, NVDA CERTIFIED EXPERTS, REPORT AN ISSUE / FEATURE SUGGESTION. Below that you will find another section with more resources, namely Get add-ons to enhance NVDA, Get extra voices for NVDA, and Switching from Jaws to NVDA (Community Wiki), and below that FAQs.
Just below the help training and support menu, you will also be able to find the NVACCESS shop menu. This points to: buy training material, to learn how to use NVDA to its full potential, along with training material for Microsoft Office, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook etcetera in different formats (for example braille, audio and E books); plus support for NVDA etcetera.
The shop also includes synthesiser packages that you can buy for NVDA.

This will make it a lot easier for a new user of NVDA to find an email group to join, an NVDA certified expert near you, addons and voices that you can use, along with the NVACCESS shop with training material all in the one place.

Native selection mode now available in NVDA for Mozilla FIrefox

From NVDA 2024.1 you will be able to do the following with NVDA. You will need the Mozilla browser or Microsoft Office Word.

A new Native Selection mode (toggled by NVDA + Shift + F10) is now available in NVDA's browse mode for Mozilla Firefox. When turned on, selecting text in browse mode will also manipulate Firefox's own native selection. Copying text with Control + C will pass straight through to Firefox, thus copying the rich content, rather than NVDA's plain text representation.
When this shortcut is used you will hear NVDA say native app mode enabled or disabled. This must be done while in the Firefox browser. In Word, this will just copy the contents.
When copying text in Microsoft Word with NVDA's browse mode enabled, formatting is now also included.

New default gesture for screen curtain

From NVDA 2024.1 the command to toggle the screen curtain now has a default gesture: NVDA key + Ctrl key + Esc key.

Assigning a gesture to open the NVDA Addon store quickly

You might not be aware that in NVDA you can assign different gestures to get quickly to different parts of NVDA. In this case, instead of doing it the old way by pressing the NVDA key then arrowing to tools, then when a sub menu comes up arrowing down to the Addon store, then pressing the Enter key... a much quicker way is assigning a gesture to do it in one step. To assign a gesture to do this, press the NVDA key + letter N. When the NVDA menu comes up, arrow to preferences, then settings, then down to input gestures, then press the Enter key. When the next screen comes up you will hear NVDA say tree view. Use the down arrow keys to locate the tools branch, then use the right arrow key to open it.
Next, arrow down until you hear NVDA say Activates the Add-on Store, to browse and manage add-on packages for NVDA, then press the Tab key.
You will then land on an add button; Press the Enter key on it. You will then be asked to add a gesture (for example Alt key + the letter A).
A context menu will come up, asking if you want it set to the desktop keyboard or all layouts. Locate the one you want, then press the Enter key on it.
You will need to then tab to the ok button for it to take effect; then press the Enter key on it. You will also have noticed in the process of tabbing to the ok button, that you can either reset the gestures to factory defaults or remove that gesture if it conflicts with other keys in NVDA.
Do not press the Enter key on the reset to factory defaults button unless you want all of your gestures reset to factory defaults in NVDA.
 
In most cases, if it conflicted with other keys, you would just remove it. Now if there are no conflicts with the gesture in NVDA, use the Alt key + letter A then the Addon store will come up for you to look at. You can assign any gesture as long as it does not conflict with another keyboard shortcut.

Installing more than one addon at a time in NVDA

From NVDA 2024.1 you can install more than one addon at a time. You still also have the option to do it one at a time.

When you are in the Addon store, locate the Available add-ons tab. When you are on it, you will then need to tab to the available addons. There will be a list of them depending upon the channel you use.
When the list comes up, use the down and up arrow keys to see what is there.
If you only want the one addon, locate it, then use the applications key. A context menu will come up, then press the Enter key on the install menu, then press the Enter key. It will then download that one addon to your computer; then wait until you restart NVDA to install it. You can do this for all the addons you want, and after they have been downloaded, when you restart NVDA, all of those addons will be installed to NVDA.

If you want more than one addon in the list, and they all are in sequence (for example 1st addon, 2nd addon, 3rd addon etcetera), hold down the Shift key, then use the down or up arrow keys to select them.

Next, hit the applications key (or Shift and F10 key) then a context menu should come up. Arrow to selected addon, then press the Enter key.
NVDA will now download the selected addons. Next, tab to the close button, then press the Enter key. NVDA will need to be restarted for those addons to be installed to NVDA.
Now, when you look in the list of installed addons, you will see those addons have been installed and are now enabled (for example: Say Product Name and Version; Status: Enabled).

Uninstalling multiple addons from NVDA at once

From NVDA 2024.1 you will be able to uninstall multiple addons from NVDA. Before this, you could only uninstall one addon at a time.

When you are in the Addon store, make sure that you are on the list with installed addons.

Next, hold down the Shift key and use the arrow keys to highlight the ones you want to remove. Next, either press the applications key on your keyboard, or if there is not one there, use the Shift key + F10 key to do this. When the context menu comes up, arrow down to remove selected addons, then press the Enter key. You will then be given a message saying Are you sure you wish to remove the addonsHelp add-on from NVDA? This cannot be undone.
You will then need to tab to a check box and check it with the spacebar if you do not want to see the following message every time you do that. It is called Remember this choice for subsequent add-ons.

You will then be given some options such as about yes and no. Tab to the yes button, then press the Enter key.

You will then be taken back to the list of addons on your computer, and each addon that is being removed will have the following: (for example Add-ons documentation; Status: Pending removal; on the addons you want to remove.

Next, tab to the close button, then press the Enter key.

The following message will come up: Restart NVDA Changes were made to add-ons. You must restart NVDA for these changes to take effect. Would you like to restart now? Then, it is a matter of just tabbing to the yes button and pressing the Enter key on it to remove those selected addons from that list.

Disabling more than one addon at a time


From NVDA 2024.1 you can now disable more than one addon at a time. When you are in the addon store (where the list of addons are located), find the addon/s you wish to remove. It will only do a bulk action of disabling them if they are one after the other. (for example 1st addon, 2nd addon, 3rd addon etcetera).
While on the addon, hold down the Shift key and use the arrow keys to highlight the ones you want to disable. When they are all selected, use the applications key (or if there is none use the Shift key + F10 key). A context menu will come up. Next, arrow down to disable selected addons, then press the Enter key.

You will then be taken back to your list of addons and you will see the following (for example NVDA recorder; Status: Disabled, pending restart).
Next, tab to the close button, then press the Enter key. A message will come up saying Restart NVDA Changes were made to add-ons. You must restart NVDA for these changes to take effect. Would you like to restart now?. Tab to the yes button then press the Enter key.
Now, when you go back to that same list, you will see the following: NVDA recorder; Status: Disabled; to all of your selected addons.

NVDA development snapshots

Are you wondering what could be coming out in the next release of NVDA?
Before that happens, ideas are put into an alpha snapshot and tested. If the idea is taken on, it will go to a Beta release, then about a week or so before the main release it will become a release candidate.
If any bugs are found in either the beta release or release candidate, it could put the stable release back by a week or more.
 
The final release will be the stable release which most people will use in either the home or work environment (for example NVDA 2024.1).

The link to the webpage where you can download a snapshot and test it out, or even just see what is coming out in the stable release when it comes out, can be found at https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/snapshots/

Please note:
If you want to test out a snapshot of NVDA, it is wise to create a portable version of NVDA on your hard drive. Make sure you put the files into a folder that you have created called NVDA portable, then add a shortcut on the desktop to start it. Make sure you assign a hotkey to start it. Portable versions do have limitations. Please see the section in the user guide called Portable and Temporary Copy Restrictions. This also applies to temporary copies of NVDA.

If any bugs are discovered, they can be reported to NVAccess via the help training and support menu, under a heading called report an issue.

Make sure you check out the what's new section in the user manual to see what has been done in each snapshot.

Do you need help with NVDA?

If you have just downloaded a copy of the NVDA screen reader to your computer, and are wondering if there is an email group that you can join (either in English or another language) then you have come to the right place. You may also be wondering if there is training material - on how to use the NVDA screen reader. You may be also wondering if you can change the synth used or if there are add_ons etcetera that you can use with NVDA.
The following webpage may also help to answer other questions that you may have, so get yourself over to the following webpage at https://www.nvaccess.org/get-help/


NVDA screen reader English email group
Non Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) is screen reader software for the Windows operating system.  The central purpose of this group is discussing how to use NVDA.
To subscribe send an email to: nvda+subscribe@nvda.groups.io
Group web page https://nvda.groups.io/g/nvda


Bluetooth devices and screen readers

This question comes up from time to time... Is there an addon for NVDA (or a program) that works with both Bluetooth and screen readers? Below are some options that you may not be aware of for NVDA and Windows that keeps your Bluetooth device awake.
This should stop the clipping of a character or word, when the screen reader is activated while using a headset etcetera.
 
The most commonly used solutions, depending on the Bluetooth device(s) in use, are:
1. Bluetooth Audio Add-On for NVDA
2. WakeSpeaker Add-On for NVDA
3. Silenzio for Windows (not in English). The link to the web page is https://www.stefankiss.sk/silenzio
4. NoiseGen (beta for Windows as of 10/2023) The link to the web page is https://aicomms.nz/NoiseGen.html

Obtaining older copies of the NVDA screen reader

There are usually up to 4 releases of NVDA per year. There may be cases where you want to get an older copy of NVDA. This could be in a case where the latest release of NVDA does not support add ons that you used all the time in a previous version of NVDA.
It is a matter of using an earlier version of NVDA with the supported addons, or waiting until those same addons are updated for the latest version of NVDA.

Prior versions of NVDA are available for download for quite a while after any given version goes out of support.
Below will be 2 examples of downloading 2 different versions of NVDA.
This is done in the location bar where you type in a web address in your browser.

In the below examples, edit the version number in both places and make sure that they match.
You can also copy and paste the web address below into the location bar and change it to the version you want.

For example, if you wanted the last version of NVDA that worked with XP and Vista, you would do the following. You would copy the web address into your location bar in the browser  https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/releases/2017.3/nvda_2017.3.exe

If you wanted the previous release of NVDA before NVDA 2021.1 you would put in the location bar the following https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/releases/2020.4/nvda_2020.4.exe

New Audio Settings panel

The shortcut key to open the new audio settings panel is NVDA key + Ctrl key + the letter U
From NVDA 2023.3 there will be a new “Audio” panel in the settings dialog. The “Audio” settings panel currently contains four options:
• Audio Output Device. This controls the hardware device that NVDA sends its audio to. This can generally be left unchanged.
• Audio Ducking Mode. Whether the volume of other audio on the system is always lowered while NVDA is running, only while NVDA is speaking, or never.
• Volume of NVDA sounds follows voice volume. Whether beeps and other sounds (example: changing from focus mode to browse mode and back) uses the same volume level as the speech volume.
• Volume of NVDA sounds – the level of the sounds if not following the voice volume.
The first two options are currently also found in the Synthesizer dialog. The intention is to remove them from there in the future.
To read more about these settngs and what they do, see the sections in the user guide called Audio,  open audio settings, output device, audio ducking mode, Volume of NVDA sounds follows voice volume, and Volume of NVDA sounds.

Ignore blank lines gesture

From NVDA 2023.3 there is a new option in Document Formatting settings called "Ignore blank lines for line indentation reporting".
Please see the input gestures section in NVDA. Locate the document formating branch, then locate the following called Toggles on and off the ignoring of blank lines for line indentation reporting, and asign a gesture to it.

New gesture for tab groupings

From NVDA 2023.3 there was Added an unassigned gesture to navigate by tab groupings in browse mode. Please see the input gestures section in NVDA to assign these gestures.

Refreshable OCR


From NVDA 2023.3 there is a new option in NVDA under the “Windows OCR” section of the NVDA settings dialog. There is a checkbox called “Periodically refresh recognized content”.
The User Guide for this option states: “When this checkbox is enabled, NVDA will automatically refresh the recognized content when a recognition result has focus. This can be very useful when you want to monitor constantly changing content, such as when watching a video with subtitles. The refresh takes place every one and a half seconds. This option is disabled by default.”

Once enabled, you can toggle speaking new text by toggling report dynamic content changes (pressing the NVDA key + the number 5 on the main QWERTY keyboard).


Add-on manager has been renamed to Add-on store

From NVDA 2023.2 the add-on manager in NVDA has been removed and has been replaced with the add-on store.
You will be able to browse, search, install and update community add-ons, along with manually override incompatibility issues with outdated add-ons.

There have been some changes made also in the add-on store in NVDA.
You will mostly be using the Tab/Shift/Tab key and arrow keys to navigate the NVDA store.

When you first go into the add-on store in NVDA, you will land on the all installed add-ons list. This will give you a list of add-ons that you have installed in NVDA.
Use your arrow down and arrow up keys to see which add-ons you may have. If you tab once, after finding an add-on, it will give you a description of the add-on. Tab again, and you will land on an actions button. Pressing the Spacebar on this will bring up a context menu and give you some options. These will be: disable, remove and help. Choose the option you wish to use.

Tab again if no option is taken, and you will hear details. This might give you the details of the developer and email address etcetera. Tab again, and you will hear NVDA say install from external source button. If you press the Spacebar on this button, it will allow you to find where you put the file. This might be from off your computer, or direct you to a webpage to get the file known as an NVDA add-on.

Tab again, and you will hear close button.

Tabbing again will put you onto a tab called installed add-ons tab. You can tab through what is under that tab, and you should hear channel combo box. The source can be changed here. This will be the channel you want to use (either from a dev version through to a stable channel of the add-on).

If you tab again, you are given the option to enable or disable the add-on, or all.
Tabbing again will put you in a search box.
You will need to Shift/Tab back up, to get to the list of tabs there. When you are back on the installed add-ons tab, you can use the right and left arrow keys to see the other tabs there.
Arrowing to the right will give you updateable add-ons. If you tab under the tab, you should be given the option of which version of the add-on channels you want, from Dev to stable. If you tab again, there is a check box for Include incompatible add-ons.
Tab again, and this will put you in a search box.
To get back up to the tab you were on, you will need to Shift/Tab again until you get to it. Arrow to the right, and the next tab will be called available add-ons tab.
Under this section, it will give you a list of available add-ons for NVDA.

When you are on the tab, tab once and you will hear NVDA say channel. Again, there will be options from Dev to stable. If you tab once more, you will hear NVDA say Include incompatible add-ons. Tabbing again will give you a search box. Just under the search box is a list of available add-ons for NVDA. You can use the quick letter navigation to get to the add-on you want quickly.

If you Shift/Tab back up to the tab you were on, then arrow right, you will hear NVDA say Installed incompatible add-ons tab.
If there are any incompatible addons in NVDA, they will be listed here.

For more information on the add-on store, please see the section called Add-ons and the Add-on Store through to Incompatible Add-ons in the user manual.

To listen to an audio tutorial on navigating the add-on store, please go to my dropbox link at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ithc7fbgov3yq9sa79fn/navigating_the-_nvda_store_in_nvda2023.2.MP3?rlkey=n673kqr2r9e440lsvrpjd0abf&dl=0



New gestures for NVDA from 2023.2

Please see the input gestures section in NVDA to make any changes.

New input gestures:

* An unbound gesture to cycle through the available languages for Windows OCR.
* An unbound gesture to cycle through the braille show messages modes.
* An unbound gesture to toggle showing the selection indicator for braille.
* Added default keyboard gesture assignments to move to the next or previous object in a flattened view of the object hierarchy.
* Desktop: NVDA + numpad 9 and NVDA + numpad 3 to move to the previous and next objects respectively.
* Laptop: Shift + NVDA + [ and Shift + NVDA + ] to move to the previous and next objects respectively.

Reporting of highlighted colours and background colours

From NVDA 2023.2 you can enable the following to hear highlighted colours and background colours.

* When highlighted text is enabled in Document Formatting, highlighted colours are now reported in Microsoft Word.
* When colours are enabled in Document Formatting, background colours are now reported in Microsoft Word.

Paragraph style added from NVDA 2023.1

A new option has been added, "Paragraph Style" in "Document Navigation". This can be used with text editors that do not support paragraph navigation natively, such as Notepad and Notepad++.
Under the settings section of NVDA locate the document navigation section to make any changes. for example Paragraph style: Handled by appl, single line break and Paragraph style: Multi line break.
You can choose which works best for you.

Reporting of a link's destination

Knowing where the link points to on a web page or email etcetera can be helpful.
From NVDA 2023.1 (you can now see) when on a link where it points to the link address.
Sometimes the destination for the link it points to is not good (as in a scam email).

You will need to use the NVDA key + the letter K. NVDA will then speak out the link and where it points to. Pressing the NVDA key + letter K a second time will bring it up in a window. Press the Escape key to make the window disappear.

An unassigned script to cycle through language and dialect switching modes has been added

From NVDA 2022.2 onwards, there is now an option for an unassigned script to cycle through language and dialect switching modes. You will need to go to the input gesture section of NVDA. A shortcut of your choice can be added under the speech section. It is called speech modes for automatic language switching menu. After the shortcut has been added, you can toggle between automatic language switching on, automatic language and dialect switching on and automatic language switching off.

NVDA restart gesture

If you are using a portable version of NVDA, are you aware that you can restart the portable version of NVDA without shutting it down then restarting it again?
This could be used in a case where you lose speech for some reason. NVDA has to be running first, otherwise it will not work.
The gesture will not start NVDA as you will need to assign a shortcut first, in order to be able to restart NVDA.


To add a gesture so that NVDA can do this on a portable version, press the NVDA key + letter N. Arrow to preferences...settings...then input gestures... then press the Enter key. You will need to locate the following section called Miscellaneous. Open the branch with the right arrow key, then arrow down until you hear NVDA say restart NVDA. Open that branch with the right arrow key, then tab once until you hear NVDA say add, then press the Enter key. You will be asked to add an input gesture (for example NVDA key + R). You will then be asked if you want it for the desktop layout only or all layouts. Press the Enter key on the layout that you want.
You will then need to tab to the ok button and press the enter key.Now, the gesture should be added to NVDA. You can always remove it at a later date, or reassign it, if there is a key conflict in NVDA.

From NVDA 2022.4 there are new table commands

Say all in column: NVDA + Ctrl + Alt + down Arrow
Say all in row: NVDA + Ctrl + Alt + right Arrow
Read entire column: NVDA + Ctrl + Alt + up Arrow
Read entire row:NVDA + Ctrl + Alt + left Arrow
To test out these commands use the table on Accessibilitycentral.net at http://www.accessibilitycentral.net

New table commands

From NVDA 2022.2 new table commands have been added to NVDA.These are:

◦ Ctrl + Alt + Home/End to jump to first/last column.
◦ Ctrl + Alt + PageUp/PageDown to jump to first/last row.
 
If you would like to try them out, please go to the main page of Accessibilitycentral.net and try them on the table that can be found there.

Knowing the installation size of NVDA

From NVDA 2022.3 you will now be able to find out the installation size and version number of NVDA. Under the programs and features section, look for the reference to NVDA in the list. You should then hear the following: NVDA; Publisher: NV Access; Installed On: 4/10/2022; Size: 143 MB; Version: 2022.3

Character descriptions

From NVDA 2022.3 a new Speech option has been added to read character descriptions (using the phonetic alphabet) after a delay.

You will need to go to the speech setting section in NVDA use the NVDA key + Ctrl key + the letter V key to bring up the speech settings menu, then tab down to the following: Delayed descriptions for characters on cursor movement and check the box. Make sure you save your settings.
Now, when you use the arrow keys on a letter and stop on it, it will say the letter. For example the letter "A", then about a second later the word "Alpha".

While reviewing a line by characters, when the letter "B" is read, NVDA will say "Bravo" after a 1 second delay. This can be useful if it is hard to distinguish between pronunciation of symbols, or for hearing impaired users.

Toggle delayed character descriptions

From NVDA 2023.1 an unassigned script has been added to toggle delayed character descriptions. (If assigned this will turn the option on and off).

Please see the input gesture section in NVDA and look for the following speech then Toggles on and off delayed descriptions for characters on cursor movement.
You will need to assign a gesture.

Quick start user guide


From NVDA 2022.4 a quick start user guide has been added to NVDA. This covers where to get NVDA from, downloading it and also setting it up.

Say All command

To read a webpage, the desktop command is NVDA key + down arrow key.

Allow skim reading in Say All

If on, certain navigation commands (such as quick navigation in browse mode or moving by line or paragraph) do not stop Say All; rather Say All jumps to the new position and continues reading.
To turn skim reading on press the NVDA key + Ctrl key + the letter K. When the keyboard dialogue box comes up, tab down until you hear NVDA say Allow skim reading in Say All, and check that box. Make sure that you save your settings.

Windows OCR in NVDA

To recognize the text in the current navigator object using Windows OCR, press NVDA + R.  For more information about this feature, please see the Windows OCR section in the user manual.
This feature is only for Windows 10 users and above.

After you have OCR'D the object, a pop up box will appear where you can use the down and up arrow keys to read what might be there. This can also be copied. Press the Escape key to make the pop up box disappear.

Pressing F1 within the settings section of NVDA to bring up the most relevant help

From NVDA 2020.4  pressing the F1 key inside NVDA dialogues will now open the help file to the most relevant section. This means that if you are going through the different sections of NVDA (and inside of a dialogue if you are unsure about what that setting does) when you press the F1 key it will bring up your browser to the most relevant section and tell you what that setting does.

Some commonly used NVDA screen reader keys and combinations

This tutorial is aimed at newcomers to the NVDA screen reader, and its functions using a desktop computer.  When you have first downloaded NVDA from http://www.nvaccess.org/ and clicked on it to set it up...it will talk you through the setup process, and once installed will start NVDA. It will make a sound wave sound and be loaded shortly after.  If you press the windows key a menu will come up. If you then use the up arrow key it will speak the first item on that menu.  Arrow up and down, left or right to see what is there. You will need to be familiar with your tab key and the enter key for this, when installing for the first time.


NVDA can have either the insert key, the extended insert key, or the caps lock key as the NVDA modifier key. A modifier key modifies another key so it can perform another task. For this tutorial, we will be using the insert key as the modifier key (which can be used with other keys to do various tasks).  Usually, on a 101 keyboard, this key will be in a block of 6 keys, above the arrow keys.  Normally, if I press the letter q on its own, the letter q is typed or heard. Using the insert key (as a modifier key) at the same time as the q key - performs a specific function. So, when I press the insert key and the Q key at the same time, NVDA will turn off.

Laptop shortcut keys for the NVDA screen reader

The following is a list of laptop shortcut keys for the NVDA screen reader.

Connecting a braille display to NVDA

The following webpage will give you two examples of connecting a braille display to the NVDA screen reader. It will also tell you where to look in the user manual for supported braille displays and other braille display related information. For more information, please go to the following webpage connecting a braille display to NVDA

NVDA screen reader touch gestures

For a list of NVDA screen reader touch gestures, please go to the following link NVDA screen reader touch gestures

NVDA addons

NVDA add-ons are additional packages that can be downloaded and installed into your copy of NVDA to enhance existing functionality or add additional features. Once the add-on is installed, NVDA must be restarted for the add-on to start running.

If you have not installed an addon into NVDA and would like to find out more about them please go to the following web page at http://www.accessibilitycentral.net/NVDA%20addons.html

Windows magnifier addon for NVDA


If you have low vision and you need a little magnification, you can install the Windows magnifier addon into NVDA. This addon will allow you to intereact with the Windows magnifier, giving you added functionality.
It will voice out the different magnification levels and also let you swap between the following:

• Select the docked view: Control + Alt + D
• Select the full screen view: Control + Alt + F
• Select the lens view: Control + Alt + L
• Cycle through the three view types: Control + Alt + M

For more information about this addon and how to use it, please go to the following web page at https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/winMag.en.html


The new show exit options when exiting NVDA

This is a new feature that has been integrated into NVDA. When the NVDA key and the letter Q have been used to quit NVDA - it will give you 3 options before NVDA is turned off. These will be to quit NVDA, restart NVDA or to disable all add-ons in NVDA. Pick the option you want (by arrowing up or down the combo box), then tab to the ok button and that action will be performed.

This feature can be turned on or off through the general settings section in NVDA...Show exit options when exiting NVDA. To show the feature each time you want to close NVDA, simply leave it checked, or just uncheck this option so this feature is not shown when you exit NVDA.

If the disable NVDA addons option is chosen, all add ons in NVDA will be disabled. To re-enable all of your add ons again, simply restart NVDA.

To listen to an audio tutorial on the show exit options when exiting NVDA, please go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/vir1a4vj9yamob0/the%20new%20show%20exit%20options%20when%20exiting%20nvda.MP3?dl=0

Changing your synthesizer and voice settings with NVDA


A couple of things you might want to change in NVDA (after it has been installed) are your synthesizer preferences and the voice that you hear.

To change your synthesizer settings in NVDA


To change your synthesizer settings in NVDA press the NVDA key + the letter N.  Next, arrow to the synthesizer settings section. Press the Enter key and the next section that comes up will give you the following options: synthesizer, output device and audio ducking mode.

When NVDA lands on the synthesizer combo box, it will tell you what synthesizer you are on (for example E speak, Sapi 4 or Sapi 5 etcetera). Use your down or up arrow keys to change to another synthesizer. When you have chosen one, tab down to the ok button, then press the Enter key. To get to this section quickly with NVDA press the Ctrl key + NVDA key + the letter S.

The new audio ducking feature in NVDA 2016.1


From NVDA 2016.1, there has been a new feature put into NVDA. This feature can be found under the synthesizer settings section in NVDA.  To quickly get to this menu, press the Ctrl key + NVDA key + the letter S.

When this menu is first opened, NVDA will land on the supported synthesizers section. You can use your up or down arrow keys to change to another synthesizer. The same can be done for the other combo boxes below.

The next time you tab it will land you on the output section where you can output the audio to a headphone or speakers etc. The next time you tab, NVDA will land on the audio ducking mode section. It is a matter of changing the settings to how you would like to hear it.

Audio Ducking Mode

On Windows 8 and above, this option allows you to choose if NVDA should lower the volume of other applications while NVDA is speaking, or all the time while NVDA is running.

• No Ducking: NVDA will not lower the volume of other audio

• Duck when outputting speech and sounds: NVDA will only lower the volume of other audio when NVDA is speaking or playing sounds. (This may not work for all synthesizers)

• Always duck: NVDA will keep the volume of other audio lower the whole time NVDA is running

There is a shortcut to toggle between these modes (which is) the NVDA key + Shift + D.

Please note: this feature is available for the installer version only.


To change your voice (or variant) with NVDA


While NVDA is running, you can quickly get to the voice settings menu by pressing the Ctrl key + NVDA key + the letter V. When this menu appears with the settings menu, NVDA will land on the voice combo box and may say something like English.  Tab down once and you will hear NVDA say voice (or variant). This is a combo box, so the up or down arrow keys can be used to change to another voice; for example from Max etcetera to Gene if you are using the E speak synthesizer.

This will depend on the synthesizer chosen as to what voices may be available.

Tab again after you have chosen your new voice and NVDA will land on the Rate slider.  The default is 30.  You can use the right arrow key to increase the speed of NVDA or use the left arrow key to slow down the speed of NVDA. The next time you tab it will land you on the rate boost check box. Do not check this box otherwise the speaking speed of NVDA will be 3 times faster compared to what you hear now. If you accidentally do check this box, just uncheck it to slow it back down again. This can be done with the space bar.

While you are in this section you can also check out some of the other settings that are available.


There is a shortcut key you can use to go quickly between certain synth settings. Press the NVDA key, Ctrl key and use the left and right arrows to take you through these settings. They were: volume, rate, pitch etcetera. Once you have found the one you want, for example rate (while still holding down the NVDA key and the Ctrl key) use the up arrow key to speed up the voice, or the down arrow key to slow it down.

NVDA modifier keys, and changing the keyboard layout

A modifier key modifies another key, so that it can perform another task. NVDA can use any, or all, of the following as its modifier keys: the Insert key, the extended Insert key or the Caps Lock key. These are also referred to as the NVDA key. To select one (or all) of the NVDA modifier keys you wish to use, press the Ctrl key, Insert key, and the Letter K. This should bring up the keyboard settings dialogue box.  Tab down to the one you would like to use as a modifier key.  Here also, if you have a desktop or laptop, you can change your settings under keyboard layout. Make sure you Tab down to the ok button to save your changes everytime. This tutorial will only cover the desktop version.

How to find more information on different topics for Windows

To quickly find all of the shortcuts that are commonly used for your Windows operating system, please follow the instructions below.

While on the desktop, press the F1 key.  This will bring up a new screen called Windows Help and Support where you can do a search for the shortcuts.  In the search area, type shortcuts, then press the enter key. This will bring up a results screen. Find the results you are after (for example keyboard shortcuts), then press enter.  Here it will bring up a list of keyboard shortcuts for you to learn.  You could always copy and paste the results into a wordprocessing programme to be looked at and learnt at a later date. To close the screen, use the Alt and F4 keys. Windows shortcut keys are well worth learning as they allow you to navigate and perform functions quickly.

Make sure there is no other programme open, as it may open up the help section for that programme. For example, if you have your word processing programme open and then press F1, the help for the word processing programme will open up as opposed to the Windows help.

For any programme that has a help menu, pressing the F1 key will bring up the help topics for that programme. For example, by pressing F1 in Word, or by searching under the help menu in Word, you may be able to discover how to change fonts.

Also, to discover the version number of a programme that you are using, look under the help... about section to see which version of that software that you have.

Browsing the internet

NVDA supports Internet Explorer and Sea Monkey, although Mozilla Firefox is recommended.   There may be other browsers as well. Please visit the following link to my nvda road tested programmes webpage to discover a variety of browsers that may work with NVDA. http://accessibilitycentral.net/nvda_road_tested_programs.html The browser is used to browse what is available and view what is in front of you on the internet.  In most cases, you could be viewing a website or pages within that site. In this session, we will use Internet Explorer as it comes with the Windows operating system.  Other browsers can be used to get the same results.

If you are already on the desktop, press the letter I which will hopefully get you to Internet Explorer if it is there; if not, you will have to go through your programme menus to find it.  Once you have found it and opened it, it will usually open up to a webpage. This may be the default homepage that came with the browser, or a homepage that you have set it to (some site that you regularly visit for example trademe.co.nz).

There are two modes that NVDA uses. One is the browse mode where you can use the quick navigation keys to browse around a site. The other is focus mode where you can focus your attention on entering your details into an online form. While filling in the form it may go between browse mode and focus mode if you are arrowing down the page. This is so it is able to both read out field names, and allow you to interact with the form.

Disabling Browse mode in NVDA

If you want to, you can now disable browse mode by default by disabling the new "Enable browse mode on page load" option in NVDA's browse mode settings.

The shortcut to get to this section quickly is the NVDA key + Ctrl key + the letter B.  You might want to do this on some webpages or documents where it goes in and out of browse mode.  Note that when this option is disabled, you can still enable browse mode manually by pressing NVDA + spacebar.

Refreshing the buffer in NVDA should webpages or documents not load properly

In some cases, you may be surfing the web and a page may not load correctly. If you press the Insert key plus the F5 key at the same time, this will reload the buffer in NVDA so that all of the information shows correctly. It can also be the same for documents that have not loaded properly.

NVDA's automatic check for updates feature

NVDA has an automatically check for updates to NVDA feature. It will check for a new update every day unless this feature is turned off. When there is a new update of NVDA, it will alert you that a new release is available. It will ask you if you want to download it, so that you can upgrade to the latest version of NVDA at that time. When this happens with the installer version, NVDA will download the updates and install over itself to update you to the latest version of NVDA. Just follow the directions on screen to enable the upgrade to the latest version. If the portable version of NVDA alerts you about a new release, it will download a whole new copy of NVDA.   (For example 2014.2 and so on). The file will have to be located and clicked on, and the directions followed again (to make a portable copy of whatever media it was on - for example USB stick, hard drive or CD). You can install over the current version of your portable version, but this may cause problems down the track, so doing a new one every time is recommended.

There are 4 updates to the NVDA screen reader every year, so you know problems when found will get fixed rather quickly.

The automatically check for updates feature can be disabled. When this is done, it will not alert you of any updates to the NVDA screen reader. This may be in the case of a library network that may only upgrade their image (or software) once a year to the latest software at that time.

When this feature is disabled, there is no way of knowing accurately how many people are using NVDA on any given day. (These user statistiscs would also be affected by those running a computer without internet access). For the average home user it is a good idea to leave it on. These figures may assist when the project is looking for funding, and funders in turn may be looking at how many people could potentially benefit from such a programme.

To disable the automatically check for updates feature while NVDA is running, press the Insert key + Ctrl + G to bring up the general settings dialogue box. When it comes up, Tab down to the check box that says automatically check for updates, and uncheck the box with the space bar. Then, Tab down to the ok button and press the Enter key. You will not be alerted from then on about any updates to NVDA.

If you would like to check for an update to NVDA without enabling that feature again, this can also be done under the Help section and check for updates menu. Just follow the directions to download a new copy of NVDA when it comes out.

Checking out the what's new section in NVDA

If you would like to know what has been done in each release of NVDA, then you will need to check out this section. It can be located under the help section. Look for the what's new menu and press the Enter key. When the browser opens, it will give you a whole list of things (for example amendments, new features, bug fixes, changes and so on). This is done for each version of NVDA, so be sure to check out this section each time to see what has been changed or is new in the latest release!

Going between tabs in a browser

There are a couple of different ways you can do this. This will also depend on how many tabs you might have open.

You can use the following Ctrl + the Tab key, the Ctrl key + either page up or page down key, and adding the Shift key will do the tabs in reverse. You can also use the Ctrl key and a number from 1 to 9. You can easily (with the last shortcut) go from the first tab to the last tab by using the Ctrl key + the number 9 if 9 tabs are open.

Closing tabs or windows in a browser

The Ctrl key + W will close the tab or Window you are on. Also, the Ctrl key + F4 key will close the tab or Window and can also close the browser.
Depending on which browser you are using, you might be given the option to close all the tabs at once along with the browser.

Going into a web page and back out of it

While situated on a link, press the Enter key and it will take you into that web page. To go back out of the web page you went into, use the Alt key + left arrow key. You can also use the Alt key + right arrow key to go back into the page that you just came out of.

Some options for tailoring your browser to suit your needs

The following paragraphs relate to becoming familiar with, and customizing your browser (whether you are using Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer). Doing this will speed up and enhance your online browsing experiences.

Locating your navigation toolbar quickly

To quickly jump to the navigation toolbar in your browser (where you can type a web address, or do a search for something on the internet), you can use the Ctrl key and the letter L. Also to quickly navigate to your navigation bar, you can use the ALT key and the letter D. This will also put you into the same location (for example http://www.trademe.co.nz). This applies for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. In some cases, the F6 key can be used to get you to that same navigation toolbar. Other browsers may give the navigation toolbar a different name (for example address or search toolbar).

To quickly get to your search engine in Mozilla Firefox

From time to time you may want to change your default search engine. If you already have some search engines in Mozilla Firefox, you can quickly jump to the search engines combo box. Press the Ctrl key and the letter K. This will place you in the combo box. Then, it is a matter of opening up the combo box and arrowing down or up for your new search engine. When you tab out of it, the new search engine will be in its place (for example from Bing to Google or another search engine).

How to bookmark a website or webpage

When you are surfing the internet there may be websites of interest that you might want to bookmark and read at a later date. In most cases this will usually be a webpage off the site you are looking at. The process is the same for both.

Adding a website or webpage to your favourites in Internet Explorer
Press the Alt key so the file menu comes up. When this has happened, arrow right to the Favourites menu. Next, arrow down to add to Favourites, then press the Enter key. The very first section will be the name of the website or webpage you are on. It will also give you the option to keep your favourites tidy or in certain sections. Tab down to the add button, and press the Enter key and this website or webpage will be added to your favourites.

Adding a bookmark to Mozilla Firefox
Press the Alt key until the file menu comes up. Once it has appeared, arrow right to the Bookmarks menu, then down to Bookmark this page, then press the Enter key. The next section that comes up will give you different options.
The very first option will be the name of the website or the web page. The following sections will let you put them into folders and so on. Tab down to the done  button, press the Enter key and this page will be added to your bookmarks.

The process is virtually the same in other browsers. There is usually a shortcut key that can be used to quicken up the process of bookmarking your website or web pages.

Altering the homepage in your browser

In Internet Explorer
Press the Alt key until the file menu comes up. When it is up, arrow right to the tools menu, then down to the internet options menu, then press the Enter key. The next screen that comes up will give you various options. Locate the General tab. Tab until you hear home page tabs. There will be an edit area where you can enter in your new homepage address if there is not one there already (for example http://www.stuff.co.nz ).

Next, tab down to the apply button then press the Enter key to apply the settings. Tab again until you hear it say ok button, then press the Enter key. You will need to close the browser and reopen it again (or press the F5 key to refresh your browsers current page). Once reopened, the new homepage should be set to your selected webpage.

In Mozilla Firefox
To add a new home page to Mozilla Firefox, press the Alt key until you hear file menu. When it comes up, arrow right to the Tools menu, then down to the options menu, then press the Enter key. The next screen that comes up will give you various options. NVDA should default to the General tab. If this is so, tab until you hear when Fire Fox starts combo box home page. Make sure this is set to home page in this combo box. Tab again, then enter in your new homepage  (for example http://www.stuff.co.nz ). Next, tab down to the ok button and then press the Enter key. You will have to close the browser then reopen it for the new homepage to take affect. Pressing the F5 key to refresh the page will also do the same thing.

Single letter navigation

NVDA uses single letter navigation keys (also known as quick navigation keys) to move around a website quickly.  To quickly jump to certain areas within a document (while in browse mode), press the appropriate letter to get to that field. To go back one, press the Shift key at the same time as that letter. For example, pressing the letter h will take you to the next available heading, and pressing Shift + h will take you back to the previous heading. The keys are listed below:
•h: heading
•l: list
•i: list item
•t: table
•k: link
•n: nonLinked text
•f: form field
•u: unvisited link
•v: visited link
•e: edit field
•b: button
•x: checkbox
•c: combo box
•r: radio button
•q: block quote
•s: separator
•m: frame
•g: graphic
•d: ARIA landmark

Tab headers

From NVDA 2020.4 “Tab headers are now considered form fields with the quick navigation key using the letter F key”.
To test out the feature, please go to the following web page at https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/examples/tabs/tabs-1/tabs.html
Tab headers change the information presented on a section of a page, depending on the header selected. On that sample page, look for the “Nils Frahm”, “Agnes Obel” and “Joke” form fields.  Press the letter F and it will land on each tab field. Pick any one, then either press the Spacebar or Enter key to select it. Then, use the say all command to read the contents of each tab field section.

Pressing e and Shift + e in browse mode, allows you to navigate to edit fields. These now include editable combo boxes (for example the search box in the latest version of Google Search).

If you have broadband (or even dialup) to surf the internet, and you would like to try out some of these quick navigation keys, you could go to the following website to try them out.  The website is http://www.trademe.co.nz

Once you are there, to confirm that you have arrived at the correct website, press the Insert and t keys to tell you the title of the web page. You should hear NVDA confirm that you are at the correct site.

This website is made up of lists, tables, headings and so on.  Usually, when a page is loaded, NVDA will start reading out the web page to you.  To stop it, press the Ctrl key on your keyboard.  To go to the top of the webpage, press the Ctrl and Home keys to get you there. Try some of the quick navigation keys to see what they do.  If you press the letter h, it will take you through all of the headings on that page.  To get back to the top again, press the Ctrl and Home keys.

This time we will try it with lists.  Press the letter L to cycle through available lists.  Press the letter l, and it will take you through the list of items you are currently looking at. There may be more than one list. If you would like to see what is in each list, use either the up and down arrow keys, Tab key or the letter k for navigating by links. When you get to the last of your list and tables etc, if there are no more, it will announce that there are none (for example no more tables or no more lists).

If there is a combo box (or combo boxes) on the website, press c for combo box and it should take you there.  To open it, press the space bar to focus it, then press the down arrow or up arrow keys to see what is there.  When you find what you are looking for, press Enter to close the combo box, and Tab to the Search button and press enter.  If you would just like to close it, press Enter without Tabbing to the Search button.

When you come across an edit field (depending on how your settings are set), you can either press the Insert and spacebar for it to change from browse mode to focus mode, or you can set this in your preferences so it does it for you automatically.  Once in focus mode, you will be able to type what you are looking for.  If you want to quickly get out of focus mode, press the Escape key.

In a lot of cases when navigating tables (such as in banking websites), most people will use the up and down arrow keys to see what is there.  The tables you are looking at may be of various sizes.  For example, a table may have 5 columns and 3 rows. Columns will go down the table, while rows will go across.  So, if you use the arrow keys from the start of the table and use the arrow down key, it should say column 1 row 1, and go across the row until it gets to the second row, then it should say column 1 row 2.

Using NVDA's browse mode, focus mode and elements list with Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Office packages 2007 and onwards, there is a new feature that NVDA can use in Microsoft Word. It allows you to use browse mode in Microsoft Word. In short, it will let you use browse mode in an editable document. When a word document has been typed up and formatted correctly, NVDA can either interact with the document using focus mode (for example delete words or make changes within the document); or it can be changed from focus mode to the browse mode. If the editable document has been done correctly, while in browse mode it will let you jump down the pages with supported single letter navigation keys (for example, H for headings, K for links, T for tables and so on).

To change to browse mode from focus mode simply use the Insert key and the spacebar. When it changes to browse mode the single letter navigation keys can be used. If the single letter navigation keys are not supported, you will hear this spoken out (for example these keys are not supported).

When you go back into the editable mode, you will hear NVDA say it has gone into focus mode. This is where you can make changes in the document that need to be done. To go back to browse mode, simply use the Insert key and the spacebar again.

NVDA also allows you to bring up the elements list while in browse mode using the Insert + F7 keys. If there are links, headings or annotations on that page, then these will be listed if formatted correctly. Once you have pressed Insert + F7 you will hear elements list dialogue. It will default to a tree view list of links. It will list all links in that document if any. You can also then shift tab once which will take you to type. Then either arrow up and down to get to headings or annotations or links. Once you have selected which item you wish to look at, you can tab and it will put you into the tree view list for that item (for example headings) if any are available. Simply press the Enter key on the one that you want and it will take you straight to that section.

Single letter navigation and the elements list will only work in browse mode, and only in supported documents (for example a doc file).

To listen to the audio tutorial please go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/vb0dlpym9rdfrjj/Using%20NVDAs%20browse%20mode%20focus%20mode%20and%20elements%20list%20with%20Microsoft%20Word.MP3?dl=0

Using the NVDA elements list with Microsoft Excel

In Microsoft Excel, you can now use the Elements List (NVDA + F7) to allow listing of charts, comments and formulas. To use support for reading charts in Microsoft Excel, select the chart using the Elements List (NVDA + F7) and then use the arrow keys to move between the data points.

Fixing spelling mistakes in a document

There are a couple of ways to correct words that are misspelled in a document.
One way is to use the spell checker in that program if it has one. If the program does, it is usually the F7 key that is used. When this key is pressed it will bring up the spell checker. Always start from the top of the document - otherwise not all mistakes will be picked up.
When the spell checker appears, you can tab through the different parts of the spell checker. To go back to the previous tabbed position, simply use the tab and shift + tab keys to move through the different sections in the spell checker.  If there is no spell checker in that program you will just hear NVDA say F7.

Examples of some of the Microsoft Word spell checker options

When the spell checker is invoked in the program it will go to the first mistake on the page.  NVDA will spell out the word that has been highlighted. It will then give you some options. For example:
Suggestion This will give you a list of words that it thinks the word may be. In this list you can arrow up and down to see what the words could be.
If you are unsure of the word or how it is spelt, you can (while still focused on the word) use the review text cursor. This is found on the numeric keypad. Use the number 1 on the numeric keypad to get the previous letter, the number 2 to get the current letter, and the number 3 to get the next letter.  If the number 2 key is pressed twice for the current letter, it will tell you what the letter is in the phonetic alphabet (for example you will hear "hotel" when the letter h is pressed). This feature is helpful to see how the word is spelled. To repeat the whole word, press the number 5 on the numeric keypad. Pressing the number 5 on the numeric keypad twice will spell the word out.
Ignore This will let you ignore the instance of that word.
Ignore all This will let you ignore all instances of that same word.
Add to dictionary This will let you add the word to your dictionary if you know it is correct.
Change This will let you change the word.
Change all This will let you change the same word for all instances of the same word.
Auto correct This will try to fix the word for you.
Check grammar This can be turned on and off.
Options This will let you tailor what is reported.
Cancel This lets you cancel what you are doing.

In Microsoft Word, when the spell checker is invoked, and it comes to the first spelling mistake, you can use the Insert key and the letter B. This will read out information on the active window and it will also read out the current line where the spelling mistake is. This way may not work in other spell checkers such as in Mozilla Thunderbird and in some other programs.

The other way to fix mistakes in a document is to do the following. Some people will read documents one line at a time to see if there are any mistakes on the line that is being read out. If a mistake is found, they may choose to edit the mistake using the Ctrl key and the left or right arrow keys to get to the mistake. The Ctrl and right arrow key will go through the sentence a word at a time. The Ctrl key and the left arrow key will be used to go back through the sentence a word at a time, or until they have found the word that is misspelled. Editing the spelling can be done by adding in a letter or two by typing in the letter or letters in the correct spot in the word; or simply just deleting out the extra letters with the delete key.

The way a person edits their spelling will vary from person to person (depending on what they do).

Editing spelling using the applications key

The easiest way to check your spelling is to use your applications key while your cursor is focused on the spelling mistake. The applications key (if your computer keyboard has an applications key) is usually located on the bottom right part of the qwerty keyboard (down near the Alt and Ctrl keys). Visually, it looks like an arrow pointing to a row of lines).  When this key is pushed, it will invoke the spell checker. If you are already on the mistake, it will give you some suggestions for the word) as mentioned above.  These may vary from spell checker to spell checker.

Note regarding spelling error reporting for NVDA users

Please note: The reporting of spelling errors can be turned on so you can hear where they are in a document if it is not on. If the reporting of spelling errors is not ticked, you will not hear when there are spelling errors in the document. This will also depend if the document supports this feature.

If this feature is not on, it can be turned on under the document formatting section in NVDA. You will need to check the box that says report spelling errors.

Proof reading one sentence at a time (in Microsoft Word) using NVDA once you have finished with your spell checker

Once you have finished spell checking, you can also proof read your document by moving forward and backward one sentence at a time. Use Alt + down arrow to go forward, or Alt + up arrow to go back up.

Saving a file from off the Internet

When you become more familiar with the internet, it is possible that at some stage (sooner or later), you will want to download a file from off the internet. This could be a picture or music file, an application file and so on. The easiest way, is to tell the browser where you want to save the file on your computer. This way, you don't lose the file if this is your first time downloading.

Specifying where a file is saved to (in Mozilla Firefox)

To specify where you want to save a file to in Mozilla Firefox, you will need to look under the following sections. For example, tools, options, general, and under the downloads section, tick the check box that says "always ask me where to save files"; and specify a place where you want to save them.  For example, the desktop so you don't lose it on your computer. You can always copy and paste the file to another area at a later date. Specifying where you want your files saved may differ in other browsers.

Three ways to download a file (using NVDA)

There are a couple of ways to get to the file you want to download from off the internet.

Save a file by using the download link

The first is - there may be a download link, and when you press the Enter key on that link, a little dialogue type box will come up.  This will give you the option to either: open the file or save it. Either arrow down, or tab to the save button and press the Enter key. If a place is not specified in the browser, it will download it to the downloads folder (depending on your operating system) on your computer. You will need to become familiar with where your download folder is in case you close the browser, or you wish to install the download later on.

Save a file by routing the mouse to the download link

The next way, if pressing Enter on some websites (as above) doesn't work, is to route the mouse to the downloads link of that file. Locate the link which points to the file, then press the Insert key + the divide key (which is found on the numeric keypad) to route the mouse to that link. Once this has been done, you will then need to right click the mouse. This is simulated by NVDA. You will need to use the multiply key (on the numeric keypad) again for this. A context menu will come up, then it is a matter of arrowing down the menu until you hear one called "save link as". Press the Enter key to save the file. Again, if not specified it will go to the downloads section.

Save a file by using the context menu

The last way is to use the context menu on the keyboard. This is usually found on the right side of the qwerty keyboard (between the Alt key and the Ctrl key).  Not all keyboards will have this context key. Once NVDA has been focused on the download link, if the context menu key is used, it will come up with the same option to save your link as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Whichever way you choose to download your file, to check on the progress of your download within Mozilla Firefox, you can either go to the Tools menu (by pressing Alt...(the letter T for) tools... (and the letter D for) downloads. Or, simply bring it up with the shortcut combination Ctrl + J. You can then tab around the download manager screen to see what your downloads are up to.
The wording may vary in different browsers. For example, in Mozilla Firefox it will be "save link as" compared to "save target as" in Internet Explorer.

To listen to an audio tutorial on the three different ways to download a file please go to the following link https://www.dropbox.com/s/3pbniws8nico4up/how%20to%20download%20a%20file%20with%20NVDA.MP3?dl=0

To view the files you are currently downloading using download manager

To view your current downloads in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, you can use the Ctrl key and the letter J. This will give you a list of things you are downloading from off the internet. You can use the Tab keys and the arrow keys to navigate around the download manager. If you are using NVDA and have it set to announce percentages, then it will tell you the progress of your download.

Opening a PDF document

There are many documents and manuals that are in PDF format. PDF stands for portable document format and will have an extension of .pdf for example Uniden SSE25 user manual.pdf

The easiest way to open one of these files is to download the file to your computer where it can be opened with a programme that opens PDF documents. For example Adobe reader - which is a free PDF viewer. There are a lot of other PDF viewer programmes out there if you choose to use another one. Click here if you wish to try out Adobe Reader https://get.adobe.com/reader/
Some PDF programmes/viewers will open the PDF document from your desktop, whereas others may open them in your browser.

If you don't have a PDF viewer programme on your computer then you will not be able to open any of these files. Once one of these PDF documents have downloaded to your computer, it is a matter of locating the file and clicking on it. This should bring it up in your PDF viewer. In the case of a screen reader user press the Enter key to open it, and follow the directions of the pdf viewer to read it - such as the reading order and so on.

Once the document has been opened, to read it with NVDA, you can use the Insert key and the down arrow key. This will invoke the "say all" command in NVDA.

If no PDF viewer is found, Windows may ask you which programme to try and open the PDF with. For example, wordpad. There are a lot of free PDF viewers out there you can use, but not necessarily all are screen reader friendly. Adobe reader is screen reader friendly and can easily be navigated by a screen reader (such as NVDA).

To listen to an audio tutorial covering the basics, needed to be able to download and read a PDF document using NVDA, please go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/8qk136wwk8fvb4d/downloading%20a%20pdf%20document%20and%20reading%20it%20basic%20instructions.MP3?dl=0

Bringing up the elements list so you can quickly find elements such as contact us

When you are on a webpage (such as http://www.nvaccess.org/ or any other website, press the Insert and F7 keys and it should bring up the elements list.  The elements list will default to the links list.  There might be a whole heap of links there.  If you would like to find the Contact us section quickly, type in the first couple of letters to find it.  It will narrow down the list very quickly until it finds the contact us link. You may have to arrow up or down just to check.  Once it has found it, press the enter key to go straight to that area.  Try this a couple of times on different links you may want to find (for example downloads). Repeat the process a few times until you are happy with your results.

If the elements list is not up, press Insert and F7 again to bring it up.  This time I will get you to Tab around until you hear one called type.  If you arrow up and down here, you will hear links, headings and landmarks.  Change it down to headings and Tab around until you hear what headings are there.  Try typing a couple of letters for a heading you know is there, and the list will be narrowed down again for you.  Press enter to go to that heading. The same can be repeated for landmarks as well. If you would like to, try it on this page and see what results you get.

Embedded Objects

Embedded objects are objects within a webpage that you can interact with - if they have been made accessible. Pages can include rich content (using technologies such as Adobe Flash and Sun Java). Where these are encountered in browse mode, NVDA will announce "embedded object". You can press enter on these objects to interact with them. If it is accessible, you can then tab around it and interact with it like any other application. A key command is provided to return to the original page containing the embedded object: NVDA+control+space moves the focus out of the current embedded object and back into the document that contains it. To interact with accessible flash videos you will need to get Adobe flash player.

Once the Adobe flash player has been downloaded and set up, you can test it out. To test it out, go to the You Tube homepage. Search for a topic you are interested in. To interact with a flash video on that page,  press the letter O and it will take you to the first embedded object.  Press enter and it should start.  If the video is accessible, pressing the tab key should cycle you through the available buttons on the player. If it is not accessible, it may start automatically and there may be no buttons to interact with.  Alternatively, you could go to a website called povidi .com and use the Your Tube webpage which is an accessible You Tube interface. The link for the Your Tube page is as follows: Your Tube webpage.

Enabling audible progress updates

Sometimes, when you are downloading a file or burning a CD etcetera, you may want to hear available progress updates. Progress updates allow you to hear an update of how far your download has progressed, or how much of your file has been copied so far (at that point in time). To turn them on and off or to select the appropriate option, press Insert and the letter U. Press this again to cycle through the various options. These will be: no progress bar updates, speak progress bar updates, beep for progress bar updates, and beep and speak progress bar updates.
If you would also like to hear background progress updates, press the Insert and the Ctrl and the letter O keys to bring up the object presentation dialogue.  Once it has appeared, Tab down to a  box called "hear background progress bar updates" and tick it by pressing your space bar.

How to find words in webpages quickly

To locate certain words quickly in a web page with NVDA, the find command is great for this.  It helps you find certain words on the web page very quickly.

To quickly find a certain word on a web page, press the Ctrl and Insert and the letter F keys to bring up the find dialogue; and then type your word and press Enter.  It will find the first instance of that word. This is called the find dialogue box.

To find the next instance of that same word, press the Insert and F3 key to find it.

To find a previous instance of that word, press the Insert and Shift key and the F3 key to find it.

Exercise locating a word within a webpage

On this webpage, find the word navigation. To do this, press the Ctrl + Insert + F keys at the same time. Type in the word navigation. Press Enter. Press Insert + F3 to cycle through all the instances of that word. Try pressing Shift + Insert + F3 to cycle back up the page through the instances of that word. Once you are comfortable with this, you could try an external website and look up a topic of interest on that page (for example TVNZ's webpage http://www.tvnz.co.nz and type in the word weather).

Extra functionality in the search feature (now with case sensitive as well as whole word only searches)

In the browse mode "Find" dialogue, (when you press Insert + Ctrl + the letter F), there is now an option to perform a case sensitive search.

To see how this works, you could try the following.
EXERCISE:
You will need to go into a word processing program like Wordpad. On the first line, you could type your word in capitals. On the second line, the same word could have it's first letter as a capital letter and the rest as lower case (also known as sentence case). On the third line, the same word could be all in lower case letters. You could repeat the process down  the page in multiples of three (so that the word is the same on lines 1, 2, and 3,  and the words on lines 4, 5, and 6  are the same, but different from lines 1, 2, and 3 and so on). For example, "ACCESSIBILITY" (all in capitals) for line one, "Accessibility" (capital at the front and lower case following) for line 2, and "accessibility" (all in lower case) for line three.

Try searching for the same word with the tick boxes unticked and see what results you get. Now, try ticking one of the boxes, and do the same search on those same words and see what results you get this time.

As an example, if I tick the box "Match whole word only", then it will only find the word if you type it fully. When this is unticked, it will locate partial words.
As another example, if the box "Match case" is ticked, then it will only find the word if the cases match (that is searching for a match for one of the three options of lower case, upper case or sentence case).
Now try the same thing using the NVDA user manual (which can be found by pressing Insert + N... arrow down to the help menu... then arrow right to user guide).

Screen curtain add on now in NVDA 2019.3

From NVDA 2019.3 and onwards, the screen curtain add on will now be integrated into NVDA.

If you want to use this feature so it blacks out your screen (so no one can see what you are doing) you can assign a gesture to enable or disable it in NVDA. When NVDA 2019.3 is running, press the NVDA key + letter N. When the preferences menu comes up, locate the settings menu, then the input gestures menu, then press the Enter key. When the next screen comes up, arrow down to the vision branch, then arrow right until you hear NVDA say Toggles the state of the screen curtain, (either by making the screen black or showing the contents of the screen). If pressed to enable once, the screen curtain is enabled until you restart NVDA. If pressed three times, it is enabled until you disable it.  Next, tab to the add button, then press the Enter key, and you will then be given some options. It will then ask you to enter a gesture (for example Alt key + S). A context menu will come up asking you either to add it to the desktop layout or all layouts. Press the Enter key on the option you want, then tab to the ok button, then press the Enter key.

Your gesture has now been assigned. When you go to enable it with your shortcut key, it will say temporary screen curtain enabled until your next restart.  If you do it again, it will tell you the screen curtain has been disabled.

If you also check under NVDA's settings, then check out the vision branch, there are also some other settings you can adjust (for example make screen black immediate effect; Always show a warning when loading Screen Curtain).

Added screen highlight functionality to NVDA

By drawing a coloured rectangle, this addon enables partially sighted users, sighted educators, or developers to track the location of the NVDA navigator object and the focused object/control.
The following colours are used by this addon:
• Green thin dashed-dotted line rectangle shows NVDA is in browse mode, and this is the navigator object.
• Red thin rectangle shows NVDA is in browse mode, and this is the focused object/control.
• Red thick rectangle shows NVDA is in browse mode, and this is both the navigator object and the focused object which are overlapping.
• Blue thick dotted line rectangle indicates NVDA is in focus mode, i.e., key types are passed to the control.
To toggle object tracking, press NVDA + Alt + P. You can assign other gestures using the Input Gestures.

From NVDA 2019.3 onwards, the focus highlight addon will be retired, and will be integrated into NVDA 2019.3 Under NVDA's settings, then vision branch, you can adjust some settings for it (for example Enable Highlighting, Highlight system focus, Highlight navigator object, and Highlight browse mode cursor).

NVDA now remembers the last 20 searches done

From NVDA 2019.2 onwards, NVDA will remember the last 20 searches done with NVDA. Where you type your search, it is now a combo box, and is simply a matter of arrowing down to one of your searches to perform it again. If you restart or exit NVDA those searches will be lost.

How to hear what the long description is on a photo, graphic or drawing using NVDA

If a photo, graphic or drawing has been posted on a website and you wish to hear what the description says, press the Insert key with the letter D. If present, this will be read aloud. Please remember that not everyone labels their images correctly, so it may not always be present. A good web developer will label their graphic with a good description giving you an idea of what the graphic represents.

Quick navigating of tables

When within a table, use the following to navigate quickly:

Ctrl+Alt+left arrow
Moves the system caret to the previous column (staying in the same row)

Ctrl+Alt+right arrow
Moves the system caret to the next column (staying in the same row)

Ctrl+Alt+up arrow
Moves the system caret to the previous row (staying in the same column)

Ctrl+Alt+down arrow
Move to next row

Announcement of headers and cell co-ordinates in tables

To hear table row/column header information or table cell co-ordinates when navigating a table, press the Ctrl key, the Insert key and the letter D at the same time. This will bring up the document formatting dialogue.  Tab down to the 2 boxes that say table row/column headers and table cell co-ordinates and tick them both.  Next time you go into a table, these will be spoken. (For example it might read out the name of the header, or it may say row 1, column 1).


With radio buttons, when you come across them (by pressing the letter r while in browse mode),  press the spacebar to highlight the radio button you wish to use.  Arrowing down will tell you what it says (for example when filling in a survey, you may hear responses like yes, no or unsure).

If you are looking around on a website and hear the word link, this can  take you to another page within that site, or another website altogether.  Some websites can have hundreds of links on the main page.  If you decided to explore while you were there, and you have gone a couple of pages in, you could use the Alt and left arrow keys to take you back a page or two to the main page.  If you would like to go back the other way, press the Alt and right arrow keys to take you forwards a page.  This will only be available if you have been to other pages.

Alt left arrow and Alt right arrow can be used in supported programmes. This is another windows shortcut command.

To go to the location bar (where you can type in a web address or a search query), press the Ctrl and letter l to get you there. Press backspace to clear the current webpage, and then type in a web address (for example http://www.stuff.co.nz), then press Enter and it should take you to that web site.  If you are just doing a random search, type in what you are looking for, press enter and your options will come up on the next page.  You can jump down by links and headings to see your results.  There may be thousands of results for you to read there.  Usually, at the bottom of the page, there will be a table which will let you go to the next page or pages in the list.

Column header and row header reporting within Microsoft Excel

If you have Microsoft Excel, you will be pleased to know that automatic reporting of column and row headers is now supported in NVDA 2012.3 onwards. Press NVDA+Shift+C to set the row containing column headers, and NVDA+Shift+R to set the column containing row headers. Press either command twice in quick succession to clear the setting.

Reviewing text with NVDA so you can revisit information

Most webpages will have contact details somewhere on their site. Once you have located the details you require, you can arrow up and down the page to hear the information relayed to you.  Generally, it will read the information out a line at a time.  If you would like your system focus to stay at your last location (and not move), you could use the review cursor to go up and down the details. The review cursor only reviews the text.  It is not like the system focus that can interact with the page. To use the review cursor, this must be done on the numeric keypad and your numlock must be turned off.  Basically, the system focus will speak out what the system is currently focussed on. The review cursor allows you to review more information without losing your place.

The following keys will be used to do this 7, 8, 9, ... 4, 5, 6, ... 1, 2, 3 on the numeric keypad. To help you remember these commands, note that the basic text review commands are organized in a grid of three by three, with top to bottom being line, word and character, and left to right being previous, current and next.

The layout is illustrated as follows:
Previous line = numeric 7
Current line = numeric 8
Next line = numeric 9
Previous word = numeric 4
Current word = numeric 5
Next word = numeric 6
Previous character = numeric 1
Current character = numeric 2
Next character = numeric 3

As an exercise, I have used the opening hours and contact details from the Inglewood Fun Ho! Toy Museum website in the paragraph below. These are for you to try out using the review cursor (once you change over to it) so that you can see / hear the difference. Using the review cursor will allow you to review the details. We will use the arrow keys to go to the words Opening Hours & Contact. You will hear it read out to you. Now, change over to the numeric keypad, and try out the review cursor to see what it does.  You could try out the review cursor with the prices, addresses, and phone numbers that follow.  Read the street address and phone numbers by using the numeric keypad's 7, 8, and 9 keys to go up and down the lines of informationTry the numeric keypad's 4, 5, and 6 keys to move backwards and forwards word by wordFinally,  try the numeric keypad's 1, 2, and 3 keys to hear the details letter by letter. The line by line option is good for quickly moving through lines of information; the word by word option is good for clarifying a street name or number; and the letter by letter option is good for when you are wanting to record a phone number.

Opening Hours & Contact
Fun Ho! National Toy Museum
Opening Hours 10.00am - 4.00pm daily
Entry: Adult $6.00 - Child $3.00
25 Rata Street, Inglewood, Taranaki, New Zealand.
Ph: 0064 6 75 67030 Fax: 0064 6 75 67864 E Mail: funhotoys@funho.com
Postal address: Box 14 Inglewood, Taranaki, New Zealand.
Manager/Toy Maker/Curator Richard Jordan

More detailed information about keys used for reviewing text

When moving the review cursor, the System caret does not follow along, so you can review text without losing your editing position.
The following key commands are available for reviewing text:

Move to top line in review (Moves the review cursor to the top line of the text)
shift+numpad 7

Move to previous line in review (Moves the review cursor to the previous line of text)
numpad 7

Report current line in review. (Announces the current line of text where the review cursor is positioned. Pressing twice spells the line. Pressing three times spells the line using character descriptions)
numpad 8

Move to next line in review. (Move the review cursor to the next line of text)
numpad 9

Move to bottom line in review. (Moves the review cursor to the bottom line of text)
shift+numpad 9

Move to previous word in review. (Moves the review cursor to the previous word in the text)
numpad 4

Report current word in review. (Announces the current word in the text where the review cursor is positioned. Pressing twice spells the word. Pressing three times spells the word using character descriptions).
numpad 5

Move to next word in review. (Move the review cursor to the next word in the text)
numpad 6

Move to start of line in review. (Moves the review cursor to the start of the current line in the text)
shift+numpad 1

Move to previous character in review. (Moves the review cursor to the previous character on the current line in the text)
numpad 1

Report current character in review. (Announces the current character on the line of text where the review cursor is positioned. Pressing twice reports a description or example of that character. Pressing three times reports the numeric value of the character in decimal and hexadecimal).
numpad 2

Move to next character in review. (Move the review cursor to the next character on the current line of text)
numpad 3

Move to end of line in review. (Moves the review cursor to the end of the current line of text)
shift+numpad 3

Say all with review. (Reads from the current position of the review cursor, moving it as it goes)
numpad Plus

Copy from review cursor. (Starts copying text from the current position of the review cursor. The actual copy is not performed until you tell NVDA where to copy to)
NVDA+F9

Copy to review cursor. (Finishes copying from the position of the review cursor, to the review cursor's current position. After pressing this key, the text will be copied to the Windows clipboard. and using Ctrl + V after this command, will paste the information to where you have the cursor positioned. (For example, copying so you can paste in a word processing document).
NVDA+F10

Report text formatting. (Announces the formatting of the text where the review cursor is currently situated)
NVDA+F


Note: numpad keys require numlock key to be turned off to work properly.

Please feel free to try using the above commands to review text (with the NVDA screen reader) on a website of your choice.

Using NVDA with self voicing applications

In some cases, you might want to go into a self voicing application (such as Talking Typer). If you don't want to hear the two lots of voices, you have two options. You can press the Insert key and the letter S until the NVDA voice is turned off. If you press Insert+S repeatedly (to toggle between the settings), it will go between speech mode off, speech mode beeps and speech mode talk.  While in speech mode off, you will only hear the other self voicing application's voice. In parts where it may not self voice, you can toggle Insert+S again to turn NVDA back onto talk mode quite quickly. Toggling the speech on and off is also handy if someone else wants to use your pc and you don't want to turn NVDA off completely. Once the other person has finished with the computer, simply press Insert+S until you hear the speech come back on again.

The other way to use NVDA with self voicing applications is to put NVDA to sleep. You can toggle between application sleep mode on and application sleep mode off by pressing NVDA+Shift+S. Sleep mode disables all NVDA commands and speech/braille output for the current application. This is most useful in applications that provide their own speech or screen reading features.

Object Navigation

For this you will use your modifier key and the numeric keypad. When navigating with object navigation, please remember to use your numeric keypad and ensure your Num Lock is turned off.

Object navigation allows you to navigate objects within a programme. Some objects may have different heirarchial levels which are called parents and children. Other objects may be on the same level and are navigated using next and previous. You could liken the parents and children object heirarchy to that of a workplace with varying levels of positions of authority (for example worker, supervisor, General Manager and CEO); compared to likening an equal status object to that of a football team where all players are equal.  Object navigation takes a little bit of playing around with to get used to it.  It will allow you to go between different parts of the programme that you are using like menus, buttons and so on. For the object navigation key combinations below, NVDA+ refers to whatever key you have set as your modifier key (example Insert, extended Insert or Caps Lock key).

Report current object
NVDA+numpad 5
Reports the current navigator object. Pressing twice spells the information, and pressing 3 times copies this object's name and value to the clipboard.

Move to containing object
NVDA+numpad8
Moves to the object containing the current navigator object

Move to previous object
NVDA+numpad 4
Moves to the object before the current navigator object

Move to next object
NVDA+numpad 6
Moves to the object after the current navigator object

Move to first contained object
NVDA+numpad 2
Moves to the first object contained by the current navigator object

Move to focus object
NVDA+numpad minus
Moves to the object that currently has the system focus, and also places the review cursor at the position of the System caret, if it is showing

Activate current navigator object
NVDA+numpad enter
Activates the current navigator object (similar to clicking with the mouse or pressing space when it has the system focus)

Move System focus or caret to current review position
NVDA+shift+numpad minus
Pressed once, moves the System focus to the current navigator object; pressed twice, moves the system caret to the position of the review cursor

Report navigator object dimensions
NVDA+numpad delete
Announces the current navigator object's dimensions on screen in percentages (including distance from left and top of screen, and its width and height)

Exercise using object navigation

To see what object navigation is like to use, we will go into Notepad. Try using some of the commands mentioned and see what happens.  To start off with, using the object navigation commands, try closing the programme. You can also move inside of objects as well with these commands; for example, as in dialog boxes such as those that appear when saving a document. For an exercise, when Notepad is open, type a couple of sentences, then change to object navigation with the commands mentioned above. Try closing Notepad, then when the save dialog comes up, don't save it and see what happens. You will use the numeric keypad with your modifier key for this.  For example the Insert key (also referred to as the NVDA key) or modifier key.

For a more detailed explanation of what object navigation is, please visit the following link: http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/ObjectNavigation

Navigating with the mouse

For this you will use your modifier key and the numeric keypad. When navigating with the mouse, please remember to use your numeric keypad and ensure your Num Lock is turned off.

Left mouse button click
numpad divide
Clicks the left mouse button once. The common double click can be performed by pressing this key twice in quick succession

Left mouse button lock
shift+numpad divide
Locks the left mouse button down. Press again to release it. To drag the mouse, press this key to lock the left button down and then move the mouse either physically or use one of the other mouse routing commands

Right mouse click
numpad multiply
Clicks the right mouse button once.

Right mouse button lock
shift+numpad multiply
Locks the right mouse button down. Press again to release it. To drag the mouse, press this key to lock the right button down and then move the mouse either physically or use one of the other mouse routing commands

Move mouse to current navigator object
NVDA+numpad divide
Moves the mouse to the location of the current navigator object and review cursor

Navigate to the object under the mouse
NVDA+numpad multiply
Set the navigator object to the object located at the position of the mouse

Generally, most screen reader users don't use a mouse. What is usually done by a mouse, can also be done using keyboard commands.  In some cases, the numeric keyboard will be used. (This is unless you have a netbook with the numeric keyboard integrated into the main keyboard).  These commands will do the same job as a physical mouse would do when used. The numeric keypad will be used for both of these with a modifier key (such as the Insert key or also known as the NVDA key). An example of this might be object navigation or navigating with mouse commands.

If you do have a little vision and would like to use a physical mouse, you could turn on mouse tracking. As you move the mouse around the screen, it will read what is under the mouse pointer. To turn on mouse tracking, press the Insert key and the letter M. Press this again to turn it back off.

Using the physical mouse features

Most screen reader users don't use a mouse. They usually rely on other ways of getting to certain areas of a programme (for example object navigation or the new review modes in NVDA).

Being able to move a physical mouse around the screen, will let you get to parts of the screen a lot easier, rather than using other ways of getting to the same place. For example clicking on the close window with a mouse (compared to using object navigation).

People who have low vision may want to use a physical mouse to click on different things on the screen. NVDA may have some features that may be of interest to you when using a physical mouse (for example mouse tracking). When mouse tracking is turned on in NVDA, as the physical mouse is moved around the screen, NVDA will read what is under the mouse. For example Computer, Internet Explorer and so on. To turn on mouse tracking in NVDA, you can use the Insert key and the letter M.

To turn off mouse tracking,  just repeat the process. You will notice the difference between what is spoken when mouse tracking is enabled, and when mouse tracking is turned off. This can also be checked under the mouse settings section in NVDA. To quickly get to the mouse settings section in NVDA, press the Ctrl key + the Insert key + the letter M. This will bring up the mouse settings menu  for you to make these changes.

When "enable mouse tracking" is turned on under this section, it will give you the following options:

Text unit resolution
The unit of text spoken depends on which text unit resolution it is set to. Text unit resolution has 4 options available. If the text unit resolution is set to "character", it will only read a character. If the text unit resolution is set to "word" it will read out a word at a time. Again, if the text unit resolution is set to "sentence" it will read out a sentence at a time. Lastly, if the text unit resolution is set to "paragraph", it will read out a paragraph at a time. This may also depend how a page or web page is set out as to what is spoken out.

Play audio coordinates
When "play audio coordinates when  mouse moves" is enabled (along with "enable mouse tracking") will give out audible tones. As you move the mouse around the screen, you will hear the tones go higher as you go up the screen, and lower as you go down the page. When you move the mouse to the left, you will hear these tones more out of the left speaker, and when the mouse is moved to the right, the tones will come out of the right speaker. This feature may help people who rely more on sound to hear where they are moving the mouse on the screen. This can be enabled under the mouse settings menu in NVDA. You will need to check the checkbox that says play audio cordinates when mouse moves.

Brightness controls audio coordinates volume
If the checkbox "brightness controls audio coordinates volume" is checked, (along with "enable mouse tracking" and "play audio coordinates when  mouse moves") then the volume of the audio coordinate beeps is controlled by how bright the screen colour is under the mouse. For example, if your mouse moves over black then the volume is low, and if it moves over a lighter colour such as white, then the volume increases. This setting is unchecked by default.

Exercise: Try changing the above features such as text unit resolution, audio co-ordinates, brightness controls volume and mouse tracking and see if you can hear the difference within the same document.

To listen to an audio tutorial on using the physical mouse and some of its features, please go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/z7916q3teyamxqv/using%20the%20physical%20mouse%20features.MP3?dl=0

Assign a shortcut key to hear what is spoken under the mouse pointer

If you are more of a physical mouse user, you can hear what is spoken under the mouse pointer. There is now an option where you can assign a shortcut key to do this.

From NVDA 2019.2 onwards you can now toggle between the following: mouse text resolution, characters, word, line, and paragraph.
Before, you had to go into NVDA's mouse settings section to do this.

You will need to go into NVDA's input gestures menu, locate the mouse section, then locate the section that refers to the following: "Toggles how much text will be spoken when the mouse moves", and assign it a shortcut key. The shortcut has not been assigned so you will need to add one.  Tab to the add button, then press the Enter key. Assign your shortcut key (for example Alt + M) then a context menu should come up either to add it to the desktop layout, or all keyboard layouts. Pick the layout you would like. Tab to the ok button to apply your settings.  After it has been assigned, you can then use that shortcut key to toggle between those sections that are spoken under the mouse.

Exercise for routing the virtual mouse to an object on your desktop

This exercise assumes that you have found your way back to the desktop.  Find a shortcut on your desktop. You could use your browser as an example.  To property the shortcut, please do the following:

Please ensure your Num Lock key is off. Press the Insert key and the / (divide) key on the numeric keyboard to route the mouse to the shortcut/icon selected. Bring up the right click menu by pressing the * (numpad multiply) key.  This should drop down a menu, then arrow down to property the shortcut/icon. Press enter to hear the information that you have selected. You will need to make sure that you route the mouse to the icon/shortcut first so it has focus. If you forget to do this, it will not look at the same object and may right click anywhere on that screen. For those who are not familiar with their divide and multiply keys, the divide key is directly above the numeric number 8, and the multiply key is directly above the numeric number 9. These two commands are used with a lot of programmes and allow you to access a programme's menus quickly. An example would be accessing an icon and its menus from the notification area.

An alternate way to property that same object from the exercise above, (using the Windows shortcut for it) is to simply arrow to the shortcut you would like, and press the Alt and Enter keys at the same time.

As always, for more indepth information, please consult your NVDA user manual.

Adding abbreviations to your dictionary

NVDA has three speech dictionaries that people can use. They are default, speech and temporary. For more information please see the section called Speech dictionaries in the user guide. At times when you are in chat programmes or other various applications, people may use abbreviations when communicating on the internet. The most common place you will see this type of language will be in chat rooms.  This is so they don't have to type out the whole word. For example if someone is laughing out loud, they may put in the letters L O L. Instead of just hearing the word L O L, and once you have added your entry to the default dictionary - every time you come across that word in a chat, you will then hear laughing out loud or whatever entry you have added. To add a new entry to your default dictionary press the insert key and the letter N. This will bring up your preferences menu where you can make changes to your NVDA settings. Next, arrow right to general settings, then arrow down to speech dictionaries. Once there, arrow right to default, and press enter. You will be given some options there. You will need to find one called add, then press enter. You will be given some more options. The first option will be pattern. This is where you will put the abbreviation in (for example the letters lol), tab again and the next entry will be replacement. Type in the words laughing out loud. Once this has been done, you could just tab to the ok button (unless you wish to make some more changes while there). Now, the next time you are in a chat room and it comes across the abbreviation lol, it will say the words laughing out loud. Just repeat the process for other abbreviations you wish to add. To get you started you can visit the following link at  http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php Use only the ones that you are familiar with, or have heard and want to know what they mean.

Exercise to test to see if it worked when you added your abbreviation to the dictionary

Go into notepad and type a couple of sentences. Amongst the sentence type in the letters lol then get NVDA to read it back to you. When it comes across the lol it should say the words laughing out loud.

Regular expression for correctly speaking numbers followed by an apostrophe

Match: (\d+)'
Replace: \1 feet
Type: regexp

Changing your punctuation in NVDA

At times when you use a screen reader, you may hear punctuation that sounds very Americanised. For example you may hear the word dot instead of full stop ( which you may not be used to). This can be changed under the punctuation/symbol pronunciation menu. To make this change, press the Insert key and the letter N to get into the preferences. Next, arrow right to general settings, then down to punctuation/symbol pronunciation then press the Enter key. Here it will give you a big list of punctuation/symbols that you can change. It should land you straight into the symbols list as your first option.  You can arrow up and down the list to see what is there. Arrow down to one called dot (or whatever one you want to change). The next time you tab you will hear change symbol grouping/replacement. Here is where you will change it to what you want to hear. For example, instead of dot, you could type full stop. It will give you another option to change how much you want to hear it (for example none, some, most or all), then just tab to the ok button. So, the next time you are reading out a document, instead of hearing dot, you will hear the word full stop. To change other punctuation/symbols pronunciation just repeat the process with other punctuation/symbols. For example, you may wish to change question to question mark. For more information please see the section called Punctuation/symbol pronunciation in the user guide.

Exercise to test to see if you successfully renamed your punctuation

This exercise is checking to see if the punctuation you have renamed above works! Locate notepad again and type up a couple of sentences. Make sure to put in a dot (also known as full stop by others), then get NVDA  to read it back to you.
If you don't hear the symbols spoken most of the time, you may have to change your punctuation level to all. The fastest way to do this is use the Insert key and the letter P together to cycle through the levels until you hear "symbol level all" and you should be right then.

To add an input gesture

To quickly get to your input gestures menu, press the letter N key + NVDA key. When the preferences menu comes up, arrow to settings, then down to the input gestures menu. When the section has been loaded, it will give you 14 options. This may vary if you have add ons installed as well. In this section, you will be able to change or redefine shortcut keys in NVDA. You can not change the default shortcut keys in NVDA . There is an option to add an extra shortcut key.  This may be useful in a case where keys might conflict with other keys. Most people will stay with the default shortcut keys for NVDA. If you would like to redefine a key to be used instead of the default shortcut key, you will need to do the following...

Locate a section (for example Miscellaneous). Use your arrow keys to go up and down the list and the left and right arrow keys to open and close a branch. Locate the branch where it says quit NVDA. Open the branch with the right arrow key, then arrow down to NVDA Q keyboard all layouts. To add a shortcut key, press the Tab key (it should land on the add button). Press the Enter key. As an example you could put the Insert key and the letter X as the keys you want to use. A context menu will come up and give you the option to add to the Desktop layout for all lay outs. Arrow to the one you want. Press the Enter key and that shortcut combination will now be added. Tab to the ok button and press Enter.  Now when you look, you will see the original default keys used, plus the new one that you have added that you want to use. You can repeat the process for other keys that you may wish to change at a later date - in other sections.

To remove an input gesture

To remove the new input gesture you have created (or if you want to change it to a new shortcut key), locate the section and shortcut you want to remove. For example Miscellaneous/quits NVDA section. Locate the new input gesture/shortcut key that you created before (for example the Insert key + the letter X) that you had used previously. Once there, Tab to the remove button and press Enter. Tab again to the ok button and press Enter and now the shortcut key/input gesture should be removed. You will only be left with the default input gesture/shortcut key (for example the Insert key + Q that was there originally).

Filter by input gestures

From NVDA 2015.1 onwards, under the input gestures menu, there is a new search feature. This will allow you to search for specific commands that NVDA uses, for example: how to quit NVDA, or how to find out how much battery power you have left on your laptop, and so on. It may also be useful if you can't think of what the command was to do that task.

When you have navigated to the input gestures menu, then pressed the Enter key, all of the commands that are available to NVDA can be found here . To quickly find a command in this section, just use the Shift/Tab key once. This will put you into the "filter by" section. Next, type in what you want to look for (as in a command). For example, the word battery, quit, profiles, sleep etcetera. Next, tab the once, and it will come up with all results that meet the search criteria.

There may be no results for your search, or there could be a couple of them. Your search results will depend on what you type in initially. Use your arrow keys to navigate the list of returned results in the tree view, until you find the command you are after. The results will come up with all commands that meet that criteria. This feature helps you find commands quickly that you might not use that often.

To listen to the audio tutorial please go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/74x94eefx5qvu3n/How_to_use_the_filter_by_feature_in_the_NVDA_gesture_section.MP3?dl=0

Reset to factory defaults button for input gestures


From NVDA 2019.3 onwards, there is a reset to factory defaults button in the input gestures dialogue box. If you have somehow messed up your input gestures it can now be set back to factory defaults (as in to the day NVDA was installed).
When in the dialogue box area, tab around until you hear it spoken out; then press the Enter key or Spacebar on it. It will then reset it back to factory defaults.

Filter by search box for locating punctuation/symbols with NVDA

From NVDA 2019.2 onwards you can now filter symbols in the punctuation/symbol pronunciation dialogue, similar to how filtering works in the elements list and input gestures dialogue.

When you go into this section there are over 3000 symbols  to choose from. There is now a filter by search box. It is a matter of using the Shift/Tab key until you get to the search box; type in the symbol you want to look for, and then it will narrow down the search for you from that list.  Then, it is just a matter of arrowing down the results and picking one of them that you want to change.

Viewing the log in NVDA for errors

Under the tools section, there is a view log menu. This is used to iron out problems with NVDA (when running other programmes) as they occur. You can see why things are happening or why there are errors within the programme you are using. When you scan down the log that has been created, you will see it has tracked your key presses, and down a bit further see where NVDA is having problems with that particular programme. If you are an advanced user, you may save the log and make a ticket up on the NVDA project website. You will need to give as much information as you can when making a ticket, so that the problem can be ironed out. For example, the type of operating system, browser's name and version if known, or programme you were using at the time, and how to recreate the problem, so it can be fixed. The log will have to be attached to the new ticket to have it looked at. The ticket section can be found under the documentation link on the website. You can also press the Insert key and the F1 key to bring up the log viewer. Use the Alt and F4 key to close it after viewing.

Resetting NVDA back to its factory defaults

Once in a blue moon the NVDA.ini file (the main settings/preference file) may become corrupted. In most cases, you used to have to  uninstall NVDA and its settings, then reinstall NVDA again. You would have had to locate the nvda.ini file and delete it out. In the latest release of NVDA 2012.3, this doesn't have to be done now. It is now possible to reset NVDA's configuration to factory defaults - either by pressing NVDA+Ctrl+R three times quickly, or by choosing Reset to Factory Defaults (from the NVDA menu).

Reporting bugs to the project for fixing

In most cases, the average user wouldn't normally report bugs to be fixed in future releases. There are usually a group of people who will test the code for the screen reader before you use it. These programmes of code being worked on (before an official release) are called snapshots. In short, they are like taking photos of the project once a day, of any code changes.  This is where new features may be put in, bugs fixed for other programmes or new ideas tried out. Once in a blue moon some bugs may be found in the stable release.

If you would like to report any of these bugs (if found), you will need to do the following. For this example, we will use buggy voices. If you are lucky enough that it records a problem without losing speech all together, you can take the following steps. Press the Insert key and the F1 key.  This will bring up the NVDA log viewer. You will see lines of code that you will quite possibly not be able to understand unless you are a developer. After a while, you may pick some of this up. In the log, it will record what keys you have pressed, what programme you were using and where it had problems. This log will have to be saved. Press the Alt key, (a file menu will drop down), then arrow down to save as. Save it to your desktop or somewhere easy to find.  You can name the file as well if you want to. Once this has been done, you will need to go up to the NVDA project website. Under the developers link (or when you click on it) you will be taken to another page. Look for the section that says issue tracker. It will explain how to look for tickets. These tickets may be for new features, bugs to be ironed out in other programmes and so on. The bug you find may already have been reported by someone else.  These tickets can be added to. If it is a new bug that has been found, a ticket will have to be done. Give as much information as you can. (For example, the NVDA version, the programme used when it crashed, what you were doing when it crashed, the operating system and so on).  They need as much information as you can give them to try and fix the problem you are having. Follow the directions given under the issue tracker to make a ticket or to add to one. If you are not sure (or would like someone else to do it) ask someone on the lists and in most cases they may do it for you if you are unsure of what to do.

When you go to report the problem or bug to be fixed the following page called The basics of making a ticket for NVACCESS may help http://www.accessibilitycentral.net/The%20basics%20of%20making%20a%20ticket%20for%20NVACCESS.html
 
To help catch some of these problems, the first thing you will need to do is press the Insert key and the letter N, and the preferences menu will come up. Arrow down to the preferences menu, then arrow right to the general settings menu, then press Enter. The next screen that comes up, tab down to log in level, and change that to debug. It is a combo box that is usually set to info. Make sure you save your settings.





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