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NVDA (or other screen reader) help please! (self.Blind)
submitted by K-R-Rose
So I just downloaded NVDA earlier today because college is providing a lot of online resources, and I’m going to find greater success with a screen reader. I started with something free, but also something that has a toggle on and off option. This has been working great, except that sometimes NVDA only reads 1 word, a few words, or a sentence of a paragraph instead of reading the whole thing. Also, I don’t know how to control the Ctrl+Alt+down arrow command where it tells NVDA to “continue reading.” It starts in the middle of the web page or at a paraphrase is already read. Is this just NVDA being bad, or is this me being being bad at using it? I haven’t seen many people on here say they use NVDA, so is there something better? Thanks guys
chinakow 5 points 1y ago
OK, try NVDA+A and that should start from where you are... though that might be a laptop command for the same thing.
If your issue is a PDF(and you said you have usable vision left), tripple click the paragraph. If it doesn't hightlight the entire paragraph then the OCR wasn't done or failed. in that case, try NVDA+r to recognize it.
In these cases when I say NVDA, I mean press either Insert or capslock.. I hope that isn't talking down to you but the keyboard mappings can change and just typing NVDA+<something> is easier in the long run to type.
Also, the It is tedious but check out NVDA+n -> help -> CommandsUser Guide.. THe commands quick ref is not complete. Then use NVDA+Ctrl+f and that will search in a way that the screen reader cursor lands on the thing you want. to get the next result press NVDA+F3. If it dings then there is no more results
The user guid is well formatted so you can try nearly every command ther and see if the issue is your understanding of NVDA or a porrly formatted document.
Oh and the browser can make a small difference. Pressing F6 will move you around from places like the tabs and the controls and the document
NVDA reads the word "document" when you are actually looking at the page and not any of the other stuff... It reads it after the title of the page which is less than helpfull but that is the clue that you are in the correct section for reading
I hope that helps a little. Give it a try and report back if you have other questions.
If your issue is a PDF(and you said you have usable vision left), tripple click the paragraph. If it doesn't hightlight the entire paragraph then the OCR wasn't done or failed. in that case, try NVDA+r to recognize it.
In these cases when I say NVDA, I mean press either Insert or capslock.. I hope that isn't talking down to you but the keyboard mappings can change and just typing NVDA+<something> is easier in the long run to type.
Also, the It is tedious but check out NVDA+n -> help -> CommandsUser Guide.. THe commands quick ref is not complete. Then use NVDA+Ctrl+f and that will search in a way that the screen reader cursor lands on the thing you want. to get the next result press NVDA+F3. If it dings then there is no more results
The user guid is well formatted so you can try nearly every command ther and see if the issue is your understanding of NVDA or a porrly formatted document.
Oh and the browser can make a small difference. Pressing F6 will move you around from places like the tabs and the controls and the document
NVDA reads the word "document" when you are actually looking at the page and not any of the other stuff... It reads it after the title of the page which is less than helpfull but that is the clue that you are in the correct section for reading
I hope that helps a little. Give it a try and report back if you have other questions.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Okay so I got it to partially work. It’s not highlighting paragraphs, but it’s highlighting only certain sentences. Also it’s not pronouncing half the words correctly in this PDF, skipping spaces, and ignoring punctuation. Is this just a bad PDF?
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
[deleted]
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I actually did do this and I now have an accessible PDF. Now NVDA will only read one line at a time. It refuses to read the whole paragraph even when I tell it to keep reading with NVDA+down arrow
chinakow 1 points 1y ago
Well that is a step in the right direction. If you can highlight it, then it means you can copy the text and put it into notepad and get a couple paragraphs to read at once. I would guess that adobe or whatever you used to get it to OCR better must be putting some crazy non-speaking "formatting" in there. I get a lot of emails at work that NVDA reads as like 3 nested tables so something similar might be the issue here. But either way, since you currently have some vision you can probably at least ctrl-a to select all of the text and paste it into a notepad and get it all as one long file that will give you the information you need. Since I think you said this is for school, then you only need to save the parts of the text that you haven't read yet.
draakdorei 2 points 1y ago
I read that you are using mouseover for text reading. Have you fiddled with the mouse options in NVDA?
Are you having problems reading the text because it's blurry? Does zooming Chrome make the text better? Chrome has its own Accessibility options too that include larger font sizes.
If you're on Windows, you can Narrator and Magnifier. Both are built-in Windows Accessibility programs.
NVDA key (default Insert) + Down arrow and Shift key will start and pause text reading.
For PDFs, there is an OCR key combo (that I can't recall) which works well. If you are reading the PDF in Chrome, I find that I have to Alt-Tab to another program, wait 15 seconds, then come back to it and it will read all the text, without OCR. It's a weird quirk between NVDA and Chrome's PDF reader.
I read quite a few fansub books in PDF format in Chrome with NVDA so I feel that annoyance weekly.
I've been using NVDA for almost 2 years now and started with mouseover text reading. Now I have to use it almost entirely without a mouse.
Are you having problems reading the text because it's blurry? Does zooming Chrome make the text better? Chrome has its own Accessibility options too that include larger font sizes.
If you're on Windows, you can Narrator and Magnifier. Both are built-in Windows Accessibility programs.
NVDA key (default Insert) + Down arrow and Shift key will start and pause text reading.
For PDFs, there is an OCR key combo (that I can't recall) which works well. If you are reading the PDF in Chrome, I find that I have to Alt-Tab to another program, wait 15 seconds, then come back to it and it will read all the text, without OCR. It's a weird quirk between NVDA and Chrome's PDF reader.
I read quite a few fansub books in PDF format in Chrome with NVDA so I feel that annoyance weekly.
I've been using NVDA for almost 2 years now and started with mouseover text reading. Now I have to use it almost entirely without a mouse.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I’ll look into mouse settings and Narrator. Thanks so much! This is helpful!
rumster 2 points 1y ago
Have you tried Tab Focus?
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 1y ago
No, and Google is explaining it to me in high tech lingo that I can’t understand. How is this helpful to me right now?
rumster 2 points 1y ago
Ok, I think we need to start all over again. I think these two youtube videos will be the best starting point for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jao3s_CwdRU and the next video after should be your starting point. You should have a bit of mastering of the software right after.
Also please remember BAD CODE exists and sometimes it causes the reader to malfunction. I'm actually trying to fix this problem myself with my new job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jao3s_CwdRU and the next video after should be your starting point. You should have a bit of mastering of the software right after.
Also please remember BAD CODE exists and sometimes it causes the reader to malfunction. I'm actually trying to fix this problem myself with my new job.
K-R-Rose [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Okay. Thank you so much!
rumster 2 points 1y ago
you bet
zersiax 1 points 1y ago
If you need a hand with that let me know :) Blind web developer / accessibility consultant here :)
But yes, you are correct, badly coded HTML can certainly throw off the screenreaders ... not quite to this degree though. I'd think OP's problem is a tad more subtle :)
But yes, you are correct, badly coded HTML can certainly throw off the screenreaders ... not quite to this degree though. I'd think OP's problem is a tad more subtle :)
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
[deleted]
rumster 1 points 1y ago
Hey /u/zersiax I was actually going to private pm you! I will be bugging you soon.
FaerilyRowanwind 2 points 1y ago
Depends. There’s jaws and fusion but they aren’t free. However your local commission for the blind may be willing to provide it for you as well as training on how to use both since you are in school depending on where you are.
K-R-Rose [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Hahaha…. If only MCB would contact me back after the four times I’ve reached out to them….
FaerilyRowanwind 2 points 1y ago
Sigh. The issue might not be NVDA. It might be the resource. Some web pages just aren’t as accessible. You may have to look up a list of key commands for it. I’m sorry your commission isn’t reaching back out. That stuff makes me so grumpy. See if you can’t pull up the key commands in your phone. I’m assuming you are using some sort of voice over now for Reddit so it will probably work better for you than trying to do it on computer. You can also ask your professors to copy and paste hints into documents for you abd read them that way
K-R-Rose [OP] 2 points 1y ago
I’ve tried the key commands and that’s partially what’s not working. But it’s skipping or just not reading parts of web pages, PDFs, other documents. The only time it reliably continues reading is for standard computer stuff such as the tab I’m on, the chrome account, the title of the webpage, and names of apps and pop-ups. Is everything just not accessible?
FaerilyRowanwind 2 points 1y ago
Welp on a whole screen readers don’t really like PDFs especially if it’s a scan of a document and not a text based document. And then yeah. It’s skipping things because of how your navigating. If you can’t get around a page using tab, headings, and arrow keys than it’s probably not as accessible. Are you using arrow keys?
bradley22 1 points 1y ago
I use NVDA every day, if you could explain what you need I could help a bit.
There's NVDA commands for webpages, I've turned the automatic say all off. It can be found under NVDA/preferences/settings/brows mode.
I'd recommend reading parts of the manual you'd like help with, remembering all the shortcuts might be hard but it's doable with a bit of practise.
There's NVDA commands for webpages, I've turned the automatic say all off. It can be found under NVDA/preferences/settings/brows mode.
I'd recommend reading parts of the manual you'd like help with, remembering all the shortcuts might be hard but it's doable with a bit of practise.
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