NVDA

NVDA - Quick Start document

NVDA (A free and open-source screen reader for MS Windows)

Version: Revision 425

Please send bugs and suggestions to: Michael Curran <mick@kulgan.net>.

--- Copyright Info ---

NVDA is covered by the GNU General Public License. You are free to share or change this software in any way you like as long as you distribute the license along with the software, and make all source code available to anyone who wants it. This applies to both original and modified copies of the software, plus any software that uses code taken from this software.

For further details, you can view the license online at:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Or see the file Copying.txt that came with this software.

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This is the NVDA interface window. It enables you to control NVDA's settings, and also to exit NVDA altogether.

To bring this window up at any time, press insert + n. To close this window with out exiting NVDA, press alt + f4.

To exit NVDA completely, either press insert + q from anywhere, or choose 'exit' from the NVDA menu in this window. NVDA will then bring up a dialog box asking you if you want to exit, and you can either press the yes or no button.

To set the preferences (such as voice settings, key echo, reading of tool tips etc),

Use the alt key to move to the menu bar and then use the arrow keys to navigate the menus and find the settings you want to change. Pressing enter on many of the menu items will bring up a dialog box in which you can change the individual settings. Most settings will take effect straight away (such as changing the rate or pitch of the voice) so you can easily find what settings most suit you. However, if you cancel out of the dialog box the settings will go back to what they were before you changed them.

By default settings are not kept for the next time you run NVDA unless you press ctrl + s or choose 'save configuration' from the NVDA menu. You can set NVDA to automatically save the settings on exit by going to 'user interface...' in the Preferences menu and checking the 'Save configuration on exit' checkbox and pressing ok.

Some useful key commands when using NVDA are:

General key strokes:

control - interrupt speech

insert + 1 - turns keyboard help on and off

insert + up Arrow - reports the object with focus

insert + down Arrow - starts say All (press control or any other key to stop)

insert + t speak title

insert + f12 - report time and date

insert + 2 - turn speaking of typed characters on and off

insert + 3 turn speaking of typed words on and off

insert + 4 - turn speaking of typed command keys (such as space, arrows, control and shift combinations) on and off

insert + page Up - increase rate of speech

insert + page Down - decrease rate of speech

insert + p - turn reading of punctuation on and off

insert + s - toggle speech modes (off, talk and beeps)

insert + m - turn reading of objects under the mouse on and off

insert + f - report current font (when in a document)

Object navigation:

insert + numpad Add - Where am I

insert + numpad5 - current object

shift + insert + numpad5 - dimensions and location of current object

insert + numpad8 - parent object

insert + numpad4 - previous object

insert + numpad6 - next object

insert + numpad2 - first child object

insert + numpad Minus - move to focus object

insert + end - move to status bar

insert + numpad Divide - Move mouse to current navigator object

insert + numpad Multiply - move to mouse

insert + numpad Enter - activate current object

Reviewing the current object:

shift + numpad7 - move to top line

numpad 7 - previous line

numpad 8 - current line

numpad 9 - next line

shift + numpad 9 - bottom line

numpad 4 - previous word

numpad 5 - current word

numpad6 - next word

shift + numpad1 - start of line

numpad 1 - previous character

numpad 2 - current character

numpad 3 - next character

shift + numpad 3 - end of line