Hi all,
It's worth pointing out here that you can now purchase Eloquence and use it
legally with NVDA.
The software is available from Computer Room Services, in the UK, and it can be
installed to function with any windows programme that uses speech, even, for
example, Narrator.
Regards,
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Damien O'Connor
Sent: 09 September 2015 13:58
To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vip_students] Re: Switching from JAWS to NVDA
Hi Paul.
I agree. The guide is very good. Re speech synthasisers, I've looked on the
page for extra voices, but, can't seem to find anything that sounds in anyway
like the Read voice in jaws. Do you know if there is anything out there that is
comparable to the eloquence synth?
All the best
Damien.
-----Original Message-----
From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Dromey
Sent: 05 September 2015 13:31
To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vip_students] Re: Switching from JAWS to NVDA
Brilliant Paul, this is really useful and practical.
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-----Original Message-----
From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of [NCBI] Support
Sent: 04 September 2015 15:50
To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vip_students] Switching from JAWS to NVDA
The purpose of this guide is to assist users of JAWS (Job Access With Speech),
a commercial screen reader by Freedom Scientific to switch to the open source
screen reader NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) with ease. It assumes prior
knowledge of JAWS and that you are proficient in it's use.
It is not intended to be a replacement of the included user guide, rather as a
means to make NVDA seem less daunting.
Strengths And Weaknesses ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#StrengthsAnd
Weaknesses>
The intent of this guide is not to be a comparison of JAWS and NVDA, but it is
necessary to mention some things that NVDA doesn't currently support or that
needs improving so you can make an informed choice.
Support for advanced features of the Microsoft office suite is a fairly recent
addition, so you may not find it as polished an experience as JAWS.
However, significant improvements have been made in recent versions.
With that said, you'll find that - in most daily situations, NVDA works just as
well as JAWS, if not better in some cases.
A Quick Note about NVDA's Laptop Keyboard Layout ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#AQuickNoteab
outNVDAsLaptopKeyboardLayout>
Selecting the laptop keyboard layout does not automatically set the CapsLock
key to act as the NVDA modifier key. However, a check box is provided next to
the Keyboard Layout combo box to toggle this setting.
Eloquence ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Eloquence>
One of the most asked questions concerns the use of the Eloquence synthesizer
with NVDA. In a nutshell, it is currently illegal to do so. The following link
is to a blog post by NVDA's developers explaining the situation as it currently
stands.
http://community.nvda-project.org/blog/NVDAAndEloquenceSituation
<http://community.nvda-project.org/blog/NVDAAndEloquenceSituation> .
eSpeak is not the only synthesizer supported. The following link is to a page
detailing where to get extra voices.
http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/ExtraVoices
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/ExtraVoices> .
Terminology ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Terminology>
Most of the time, both NVDA and JAWS share a lot of the same terminology to
describe controls e.g. radio buttons, combo boxes, check boxes etc.
One notable difference is that NVDA differentiates between single and
multi-line edit fields, and will also tell you if a field is "protected"
(anything you type wil be replaced by asterisks). It will also alert you if
text is selected in a field when you tab over to it. If so, typing will replace
the highlighted text.
NVDA refers to the different languages a speech synthesizer can speak as
voices, and the different voices supported by your synthesizer as variants.
Cursors ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Cursors>
NVDA has various cursors to aid in navigating Windows and applications, similar
to jaws. The terminology is slightly different as described below.
The PC cursor in NVDA's documentation is referred to as the system focus and
system caret.
The equivalent to the jaws cursor is a combination of object navigation, the
review cursor and Screen Review. The Screen Review function is the one perhaps
most similar to the JAWS cursor, however it is beneficial to become familiar
with all three. You will find thorough, easy to understand instructions for
these in the user guide.
Unlike JAWS, you don't have to switch between the PC and JAWS cursor
equivalents as the numpad is reserved exclusively for working with the JAWS
cursor like functions.
Touch cursor ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Touchcursor>
In JAWS 15 and later, it is possible to navigate complex apps such as modern
Windows Store apps using a tree-like structure. This is called touch cursor and
is intended to emulate the experience of using a touchscreen computer.
In NVDA, object navigation and the object touch mode provides same
functionality.
Virtual Cursor ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#VirtualCurso
r>
The virtual cursor in NVDA is known as browse mode. It functions in much the
same way as JAWS, giving you access to navigation quick keys, or in NVDA speak,
single letter navigation.
Why Is Everything On One Line? ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#WhyIsEveryth
ingOnOneLine>
In case you are unaware, JAWS has two modes for displaying webpages or other
documents using the virtual cursor, simple layout and screen layout. Simple
layout is the default, which displays content in a linear fashion - putting
each link or control on its own line. Screen layout formats the content similar
to how it's displayed on screen.
The default in NVDA is screen layout, but you can easily switch to it's version
of simple layout by pressing NVDA+V while in browse mode. This will turn Screen
layout off. Be sure to save your configuration after making this change with
NVDA+CTRL+c.
It Keeps Saying Clickable Clickable Clickable. ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#ItKeepsSayin
gClickableClickableClickable.>
While reading webpages, you might notice sometimes that NVDA says "clickable"
too much, even multiple times on the same link or control.
This is easily fixable as of version 2014.1 or later. Go to the Document
Formatting dialogue, uncheck the "Report if clickable" check box and press OK.
Remember to save your configuration.
Find doesn't work on the web. ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Finddoesntwo
rkontheweb.>
This we would imagine is a common complaint for new users of NVDA that are used
to JAWS.
While JAWS is loaded, pressing ctrl+f in Internet Explorer or Firefox brings up
the JAWS Find dialogue rather than activating the browser's built-in find
command. This is to allow you to search for text using the virtual cursor.
The regular find command will search for the next occurrence of the entered
text, but will not move the virtual cursor to that location. This is due to how
screen readers interact with web pages.
NVDA has it's own find command to search in browse mode, but it has not been
tied to CTRL+F, so pressing that shortcut key calls up the browser's find
command, hence find not working as expected.
To bring up NVDA's find dialogue, press ctrl+NVDA+F, type in what you wish to
find then press enter.
Forms Mode ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#FormsMode>
The equivalent of forms mode in NVDA is focus mode, and it behaves very similar
to JAWS, Even switching modes automatically when navigating through a webpage.
It will play a sound alerting you to which mode you are in.
Details about Focus Mode can be found in the user guide.
NVDA talks too much. ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#NVDAtalkstoo
much.>
Sometimes you may find that NVDA can seem overly verbose, particularly in some
list views. This is because as far as NVDA is concerned, list views are tables.
NVDA is configured by default to announce each column or row header.
To turn that option off, uncheck "Report table row/column headers" in the
"Document Formatting" dialogue.
Solving unexpected Speech Dictionary behaviour. ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Solvingunexp
ectedSpeechDictionarybehaviour.>
NVDA has always included a function to edit "Speech Dictionaries", which are
similar to JAWS' dictionary manager files. However, until recently, the result
of adding a word to them might not be what you had expected. If you added a
word you wanted to change the pronunciation of to a dictionary , such as
"mono", any word that started with or included the word mono would be effected.
Where is in JAWS, only the text entered into the "actual word"
field would be effected, unless you appended an asterisk (*). So, in this
example, mono would be seen as a route word.
There was a work around, but this involved regular expressions, which aren't at
all obvious to the average user. However, As of 2014.4 or later, you will now
find a group of radio buttons in the Add/edit dictionary entry labelled type,
which determines how the text in the pattern, (NVDA speak for actual Word), box
will be treated.
* anywhere, which is the default behaviour.
* Whole word, which is how JAWS handles dictionary entries.
* Regular Expression, which is complicated.
You will also find a case sensitive check box.
If you previously found NVDA's speech dictionaries frustrating, be sure to take
another look.
Scripts ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#Scripts>
Like JAWS, scripts can be added to NVDA to provide support for other
applications or to add new features that can be accessed from anywhere.
These script packages are called NVDA Add-ons. You can find several add-ons
here: http://addons.nvda-project.org/ <http://addons.nvda-project.org/> .
These include a few that emulate JAWS features not currently present in NVDA
such as a system tray list, virtualise window function and ability to append
text to clipboard. Scripts for popular applications such as GoldWave are also
available. The user guide has details on installing add-ons, and you can read
help documentation that comes with each add-on to learn more about how to use
the add-on.
The following link is to the developer guide with information on how to create
ad-ons.
http://community.nvda-project.org/documentation/developerGuide.html
<http://community.nvda-project.org/documentation/developerGuide.html>
Remote Access ¶
<http://community.nvda-project.org/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA#RemoteAccess
