Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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NVDA help (self.Blind)
submitted by CryptographerUsed779
Hello, I am new to nvda. I have a dry eye condition that makes it hard to read or watch screens so I am trying to learn the screen reader, But can look if I need to. I have a bunch of questions, so I'd appreciate answers to any or all of them. I am on a laptop by the way.
- What are the different types of Visual highlights? NVDA makes a visual highlight for 3 separate things, one is blue, which I think it is the focus indicator and moves when you press tab, One is red, Which moves when I want to read text and moves between paragraphs, And one is yellow, which is a small highlight around a letter, usually the first letter in a line. I'm not sure how to describe them better, hopefully that is helpful enough.
- For the red one that moves between paragraphs, how do I make it read the whole paragraph that it has highlighted? It always only reads by lines. I've tried pressing the down arrow key alone, as well as control plus down arrow key. Is there a key I should be pressing instead to have it read everything it has highlighted? I know that read all is NVDA plus a, that is the closest I have gotten to it reading the whole thing, but I want it to stop after it reads the first part and not read everything after.
- I don't understand what NVDA plus b reads. It says it reads the active window. What is the difference between that and read all?
- Sometimes, the red Visual highlight is highlighting the entire window, rather than heading, For example, or a paragraph. If I press H, for example, it will read out loud the heading, but the Visual highlight is not on the heading it is on the general window. I am running into this specifically in the Quick reference command guide for NVDA. Sometimes it switches, it is focussed on I heading For example, then, I don't know why it switches, but now it is highlighting the whole window and I don't know how to get it to just highlight Single part, like a specific heading.
- Sometimes, when it is reading a paragraph, it stops at a random point in the paragraph, in the middle of a line. If I look, I can see that it starts reading on a word where the first letter is highlighted with that yellow Visual highlight, and if I press the down arrow key it will read again from there. Why does it do that?
- If I press control F to find something on webpage for example, when it finds it, am I able to make the focus indicator Focus on that word that I found, So that it could read from there? Is there a key for that?
- What is the status bar?
- What is the difference between report line and report current line in a review? Report line is activated with NVDA Plus L and Report current line and review is activated with NVDA plus shift Plus period.
That’s all my questions for now, thanks if anyone has answers!
- What are the different types of Visual highlights? NVDA makes a visual highlight for 3 separate things, one is blue, which I think it is the focus indicator and moves when you press tab, One is red, Which moves when I want to read text and moves between paragraphs, And one is yellow, which is a small highlight around a letter, usually the first letter in a line. I'm not sure how to describe them better, hopefully that is helpful enough.
- For the red one that moves between paragraphs, how do I make it read the whole paragraph that it has highlighted? It always only reads by lines. I've tried pressing the down arrow key alone, as well as control plus down arrow key. Is there a key I should be pressing instead to have it read everything it has highlighted? I know that read all is NVDA plus a, that is the closest I have gotten to it reading the whole thing, but I want it to stop after it reads the first part and not read everything after.
- I don't understand what NVDA plus b reads. It says it reads the active window. What is the difference between that and read all?
- Sometimes, the red Visual highlight is highlighting the entire window, rather than heading, For example, or a paragraph. If I press H, for example, it will read out loud the heading, but the Visual highlight is not on the heading it is on the general window. I am running into this specifically in the Quick reference command guide for NVDA. Sometimes it switches, it is focussed on I heading For example, then, I don't know why it switches, but now it is highlighting the whole window and I don't know how to get it to just highlight Single part, like a specific heading.
- Sometimes, when it is reading a paragraph, it stops at a random point in the paragraph, in the middle of a line. If I look, I can see that it starts reading on a word where the first letter is highlighted with that yellow Visual highlight, and if I press the down arrow key it will read again from there. Why does it do that?
- If I press control F to find something on webpage for example, when it finds it, am I able to make the focus indicator Focus on that word that I found, So that it could read from there? Is there a key for that?
- What is the status bar?
- What is the difference between report line and report current line in a review? Report line is activated with NVDA Plus L and Report current line and review is activated with NVDA plus shift Plus period.
That’s all my questions for now, thanks if anyone has answers!
DariusA92 4 points 1y ago
Firstly, I'm not sure if NVDA is the best tool for you. NVDA is mosty made for totally blind people. You probably need a program that just reads what you select. I'm not sure what program though.
And about your question, I'm totally blind, so I may answer some of your question that refer to the visual parts of NVDA incorrectly, but I try to answer the rest:
* I'm not completely sure about the colors, but try this: while num lock is off, press 3 a few time. If the yellow color moves forward in the line, the yellow color indicates review cursur. With that you can read the text without disturbing the other navigation cursors.
* Ctrl + up and down arrow should move you between paragraphs and read the paragraph you are on, not sure why it doesn't do so.
* Read all (NVDA + down arrow) is for when you are in a document (E.G. webpage, MS Words, Notepad, Wordpad, etc.), but NVDA + B is for when you are not in a document. It reads the text that exists in the window, but the color things can't move on it.
* Try using NVDA + 8 to turn on the movement of focus cursor with browser mode quick keys like "h" for headings.
* About NVDA stopping randomly, are you sure you don't hit shift there? Shift pauses reading.
* The find thing usually focus on the result automatically. In Google Chrome it doesnt do that. There, instead of pressing ctrl + f, press ctrl + NVDA + f and do your search using NVDA's own find function.
* Status bar is the last line in the window in which in many programs the status is shown. For example, in MS Word the number of words you have written, language, etc. are shown here.
* I can't answer the last question. I use the desktop layout.
And about your question, I'm totally blind, so I may answer some of your question that refer to the visual parts of NVDA incorrectly, but I try to answer the rest:
* I'm not completely sure about the colors, but try this: while num lock is off, press 3 a few time. If the yellow color moves forward in the line, the yellow color indicates review cursur. With that you can read the text without disturbing the other navigation cursors.
* Ctrl + up and down arrow should move you between paragraphs and read the paragraph you are on, not sure why it doesn't do so.
* Read all (NVDA + down arrow) is for when you are in a document (E.G. webpage, MS Words, Notepad, Wordpad, etc.), but NVDA + B is for when you are not in a document. It reads the text that exists in the window, but the color things can't move on it.
* Try using NVDA + 8 to turn on the movement of focus cursor with browser mode quick keys like "h" for headings.
* About NVDA stopping randomly, are you sure you don't hit shift there? Shift pauses reading.
* The find thing usually focus on the result automatically. In Google Chrome it doesnt do that. There, instead of pressing ctrl + f, press ctrl + NVDA + f and do your search using NVDA's own find function.
* Status bar is the last line in the window in which in many programs the status is shown. For example, in MS Word the number of words you have written, language, etc. are shown here.
* I can't answer the last question. I use the desktop layout.
CryptographerUsed779 [OP] 2 points 1y ago
I am on a laptop without the number keypad so it might be a different setting than pressing 3 with the numb lock off, but it didn't seem to do much for me, It says no next heading at level 3, so pressing three does something else for me. I'll try and figure that one out a different way.
Thank you for your answers, they were helpful! 😊
Thank you for your answers, they were helpful! 😊
vip-sizzles 2 points 1y ago
I am currently using NVDA mostly on a desktop with the screen off, so I can only guess on the color highlights. Red is most likely the caret focus & yellow is the review cursor focus. They act more like placeholders & will move as you navigate between text. On a desktop, the numpad is used for review cursor navigation. You will need to refer to the user guide for the laptop commands. These commands allow you to move the review cursor focus without moving the caret focus. When finding text, use NVDA + Ctrl + F to have the caret focus move to the text you want.
r_1235 2 points 1y ago
I don't use these highlights that often, largely because I am very use to using my laptop with the lid closed, totally with the sound.
Are you using NVDA to read PDF files? because, the issue you described about reading only 1 line at a time, usually I've seen that happening with PDF files only, or, badly formatted/converted word files sometimes.
Does the behaviour still persists on websites like reddit, while reading comments with multiple paragraphs? It should read 1 para at a time with Ctrl+ up/down arrow keys.
Are you using NVDA to read PDF files? because, the issue you described about reading only 1 line at a time, usually I've seen that happening with PDF files only, or, badly formatted/converted word files sometimes.
Does the behaviour still persists on websites like reddit, while reading comments with multiple paragraphs? It should read 1 para at a time with Ctrl+ up/down arrow keys.
CryptographerUsed779 [OP] 1 points 1y ago
No, it was even on Google results below headings. Though now it works, I'm not sure what changed. Maybe I had a setting on that I don't now or I'm remembering incorrectly but I guess I'll see if it happens again in the future. That's good to know about the problem with PDF files though, thanks for you reply!
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