NVDA 2024.2 User Guide
Introduction

Welcome to NVDA!

NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Providing feedback via synthetic speech and Braille, it enables blind or vision impaired people to access computers running Windows for no more cost than a sighted person. NVDA is developed by NV Access, with contributions from the community.

General Features

NVDA allows blind and vision impaired people to access and interact with the Windows operating system and many third party applications.

A short video demonstration, "What is NVDA?" is available from the NV Access YouTube channel.

Major highlights include:

Support for popular applications including web browsers, email clients, internet chat programs and office suites

Built-in speech synthesizer supporting over 80 languages

Reporting of textual formatting where available such as font name and size, style and spelling errors

Automatic announcement of text under the mouse and optional audible indication of the mouse position

Support for many refreshable braille displays, including the ability to detect many of them automatically as well as braille input on braille displays with a braille keyboard

Ability to run entirely from a USB flash drive or other portable media without the need for installation

Easy to use talking installer

Translated into 54 languages

Support for modern Windows Operating Systems including both 32 and 64 bit variants

Ability to run during Windows sign-in and other secure screens.

Announcing controls and text while using touch gestures

Support for common accessibility interfaces such as Microsoft Active Accessibility, Java Access Bridge, IAccessible2 and UI Automation

Support for Windows Command Prompt and console applications

The ability to highlight the system focus

System Requirements

Operating Systems: all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, and all Server Operating Systems starting from Windows Server 2012 R2.

both AMD64 and ARM64 variants of Windows are supported.

at least 150 MB of storage space.

Internationalization

It is important that people anywhere in the world, no matter what language they speak, get equal access to technology. Besides English, NVDA has been translated into 54 languages including: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Aragonese, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German (Germany and Switzerland), Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Kyrgyz, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Colombia and Spain), Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Speech Synthesizer Support

Apart from providing its messages and interface in several languages, NVDA can also enable the user to read content in any language, as long as they have a speech synthesizer that can speak that language.

NVDA is bundled with eSpeak NG, a free, open-source, multi-lingual speech synthesizer.

Information about other speech synthesizers that NVDA supports can be found in the Supported Speech Synthesizers section.

Braille support

For users that own a refreshable braille display, NVDA can output its information in braille. NVDA uses the open source braille translator LibLouis to generate braille sequences from text. Both uncontracted and contracted braille input via a braille keyboard is also supported. Furthermore, NVDA will detect many braille displays automatically by default. Please see the Supported Braille Displays section for information about the supported braille displays.

NVDA supports braille codes for many languages, including contracted, uncontracted and computer braille codes.

License and Copyright

NVDA is copyright 2006-2024 NVDA contributors.

NVDA is available under the GNU General Public License version 2, with two special exceptions. The exceptions are outlined in the license document under the sections "Non-GPL Components in Plugins and Drivers" and "Microsoft Distributable Code". NVDA also includes and uses components which are made available under different free and open source licenses. You are free to share or change this software in any way you like as long as it is accompanied by the license and you make all source code available to anyone who wants it. This applies to both original and modified copies of this software, plus any derivative works.

For further details, you can view the full license. For details regarding exceptions, access the license document from the NVDA menu under the "help" section.

NVDA Quick Start Guide

This quick start guide contains three main sections: downloading, initial setup, and running NVDA. These are followed by information on adjusting preferences, using add-ons, participating in the community and getting help. The information in this guide is condensed from other parts of the NVDA User Guide. Please refer to the full User Guide for more detailed information on each topic.

Downloading NVDA

NVDA is completely free for anyone to use. There is no license key to worry about or expensive subscription to pay. NVDA is updated, on average, four times per year. The latest version of NVDA is always available from the "Download" page of the NV Access website.

NVDA works with all recent versions of Microsoft Windows. Check the System Requirements for full details.

Steps for Downloading NVDA

These steps assume some familiarity with navigating a web page.

Open your web browser (Press the Windows key, type the word "internet" without quotes, and press enter)

Load the NV Access download page (Press alt+d, type the following address and press enter): https://www.nvaccess.org/download

Activate the "download" button

The browser may or may not prompt for an action after downloading, and then start the download

Depending on the browser, the file may run automatically after it downloads

If the file needs to be manually launched, press alt+n to move to the notification area, then alt+r to run the file (or the steps for your browser)

Setting up NVDA

Running the file you have just downloaded will start a temporary copy of NVDA. You will then be asked if you want to install NVDA, create a portable copy or just continue using the temporary copy.

NVDA does not need access to the Internet to run or install once the launcher is downloaded. If available, an internet connection does enable NVDA to check for updates periodically.

Steps for running the downloaded launcher

The setup file is named "nvda_2022.1.exe" or similar. The year and version changes between updates to reflect the current release.

Run the downloaded file. Music plays while a temporary copy of NVDA loads. Once loaded, NVDA will speak throughout the rest of the process.

The NVDA Launcher window appears with the license agreement. Press downArrow to read the license agreement if desired.

Press tab to move to the "I agree" checkbox, then press the spacebar to check it.

Press tab to move through the options, then press enter on the desired option.

The options are:

"Install NVDA on this computer": This is the main option most users want for easy use of NVDA.

"Create portable copy": This allows NVDA to be setup in any folder without installing. This is useful on computers without admin rights, or on a memory stick to carry with you. When selected, NVDA walks through the steps to create a portable copy. The main thing NVDA needs to know is the folder to setup the portable copy in.

"Continue running": This keeps the temporary copy of NVDA running. This is useful for testing features in a new version before installing it. When selected, the launcher window closes and the temporary copy of NVDA continues running until it is exited or the PC is shut down. Note that changes to settings are not saved.

"Cancel": This closes NVDA without performing any action.

If you plan to always use NVDA on this computer, you will want to choose to install NVDA. Installing NVDA will allow for additional functionality such as automatic starting after sign-in, the ability to read the Windows sign-in and secure screens. These cannot be done with portable and temporary copies. For full details of the limitations when running a portable or temporary copy of NVDA, please see Portable and temporary copy restrictions.

Installing also offers to create Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, and allow NVDA to be started with control+alt+n.

Steps for installing NVDA from the launcher

These steps walk through the most common setup options. For more details on the options available, please see Installation options.

From the launcher, ensure the checkbox to agree to the license is checked.

Tab to, and activate the "Install NVDA on this computer" button.

Next, are options to use NVDA during Windows sign-in and to create a desktop shortcut. These are checked by default. If desired, press tab and spaceBar to change any of these options, or leave them at the default.

Press enter to continue.

A Windows "User Account Control (UAC)" dialog appears asking "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your PC?".

Press alt+y to accept the UAC prompt.

A progress bar fills up as NVDA installs. During this process NVDA sounds an increasingly higher pitched beep. This process is often fast and may not be noticed.

A dialog box appears confirm that the install of NVDA has been successful. The message advises to "Press OK to start the installed copy". Press enter to start the installed copy.

The "Welcome to NVDA" dialog appears, and NVDA reads a welcome message. The focus is on the "Keyboard Layout" drop-down. By default, "Desktop" keyboard layout uses the number pad for some function. If desired, press downArrow to choose "Laptop" keyboard layout to reassign number pad functions to other keys.

Press tab to move to "Use capsLock as an NVDA modifier key". Insert is set as the NVDA modifier key by default. Press spaceBar to select capsLock as an alternate modifier key. Note that the keyboard layout is set separately from the NVDA modifier key. The NVDA key and keyboard layout can be changed later from the Keyboard Settings.

Use tab and spaceBar to adjust the other options on this screen. These set whether NVDA starts automatically.

Press enter to close the dialog box with NVDA now running.

Running NVDA

The full NVDA user guide has all the NVDA commands, split up into different sections for reference. The tables of commands are also available in the "Commands Quick Reference". The "Basic Training for NVDA" NVDA training module has each command in more depth with step-by-step activities. "Basic Training for NVDA" is available from the NV Access Shop.

Here are some basic commands which are used frequently. All commands are configurable, so these are the default keystrokes for these functions.

The NVDA Modifier Key

The default NVDA modifier key is either the numpadZero, (with numLock off), or the insert key, near the delete, home and end keys. The NVDA modifier key can also be set to the capsLock key.

Input Help

To learn and practice the location of keys, press NVDA+1 to turn Input help on. While in input help mode, performing any input gesture (such as pressing a key or performing a touch gesture) will report the action and describe what it does (if anything). The actual commands will not execute while in input help mode.

Starting and stopping NVDA

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Start NVDA control+alt+n control+alt+n Starts or restarts NVDA Exit NVDA NVDA+q, then enter NVDA+q, then enter Exits NVDA Pause or restart speech shift shift Instantly pauses speech. Pressing it again will continue speaking where it left off Stop speech control control Instantly stops speaking

Reading text

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Say all NVDA+downArrow NVDA+a Starts reading from the current position, moving it along as it goes Read current line NVDA+upArrow NVDA+l Reads the line. Pressing twice spells the line. Pressing three times spells the line using character descriptions (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc) Read selection NVDA+shift+upArrow NVDA+shift+s Reads any selected text. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will spell it using character description Read clipboard text NVDA+c NVDA+c Reads any text on the clipboard. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will spell it using character description

Reporting location and other information

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Window title NVDA+t NVDA+t Reports the title of the currently active window. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will copy it to the clipboard Report focus NVDA+tab NVDA+tab Reports the current control which has focus. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will spell it using character description Read window NVDA+b NVDA+b Reads the entire current window (useful for dialogs) Read status bar NVDA+end NVDA+shift+end Reports the Status Bar if NVDA finds one. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will copy it to the clipboard Read time NVDA+f12 NVDA+f12 Pressing once reports the current time, pressing twice reports the date. The time and date are reported in the format specified in Windows settings for the system tray clock. Report text formatting NVDA+f NVDA+f Reports text formatting. Pressing twice shows the information in a window Report link destination NVDA+k NVDA+k Pressing once speaks the destination URL of the link at the current caret or focus position. Pressing twice shows it in a window for more careful review

Toggle which information NVDA reads

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Speak typed characters NVDA+2 NVDA+2 When enabled, NVDA will announce all characters you type on the keyboard. Speak typed words NVDA+3 NVDA+3 When enabled, NVDA will announce word you type on the keyboard. Speak command keys NVDA+4 NVDA+4 When enabled, NVDA will announce all non-character keys you type on the keyboard. This includes key combinations such as control plus another letter. Enable mouse tracking NVDA+m NVDA+m When enabled, NVDA will announce the text currently under the mouse pointer, as you move it around the screen. This allows you to find things on the screen, by physically moving the mouse, rather than trying to find them through object navigation.

The synth settings ring

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Move to next synth setting NVDA+control+rightArrow NVDA+shift+control+rightArrow Moves to the next available speech setting after the current, wrapping around to the first setting again after the last Move to previous synth setting NVDA+control+leftArrow NVDA+shift+control+leftArrow Moves to the next available speech setting before the current, wrapping around to the last setting after the first Increment current synth setting NVDA+control+upArrow NVDA+shift+control+upArrow increases the current speech setting you are on. E.g. increases the rate, chooses the next voice, increases the volume Increment the current synth setting in larger steps NVDA+control+pageUp NVDA+shift+control+pageUp Increases the value of the current speech setting you're on in larger steps. e.g. when you're on a voice setting, it will jump forward every 20 voices; when you're on slider settings (rate, pitch, etc) it will jump forward the value up to 20% Decrement current synth setting NVDA+control+downArrow NVDA+shift+control+downArrow decreases the current speech setting you are on. E.g. decreases the rate, chooses the previous voice, decreases the volume Decrement the current synth setting in larger steps NVDA+control+pageDown NVDA+shift+control+pageDown Decreases the value of the current speech setting you're on in larger steps. e.g. when you're on a voice setting, it will jump backward every 20 voices; when you're on a slider setting, it will jump backward the value up to 20%.

It is also possible to set the first or last value of the current synth setting by assign custom gestures in Input Gestures dialog, under the speech category. This means, for example, when you're on a rate setting, it will set the rate to 0 or 100. When you're on a voice setting, it will set the first or last voice.

Web navigation

The full list of Single Letter Navigation keys is in the Browse Mode section of the user guide.

Command Keystroke Description Heading h Move to the next heading Heading level 1, 2, or 3 1, 2, 3 Move to the next heading at the specified level Form field f Move to the next form field (edit box, button, etc) Link k Move to the next link Landmark d Move to the next landmark List l Move to the next list Table t Move to the next table Move backwards shift+letter Press shift and any of the above letters to move to the previous element of that type Elements list NVDA+f7 Lists various types of elements, such as links and headings

Preferences

Most NVDA functions can be enabled or changed via the NVDA settings. Settings, and other options, are available via NVDA's menu. To open NVDA's menu, press NVDA+n. To open NVDA's general settings dialog directly, press NVDA+control+g. Many settings screens have keystrokes to open them directly, such as NVDA+control+s for synthesizer, or NVDA+control+v for other voice options.

Add-ons

Add-ons are programs which provide new or changed functionality for NVDA. Add-ons are developed by the NVDA community, or external companies and are unaffiliated with NV Access. As with any software, it is important to trust the developer of an add-on before using it. Please refer to Installing Add-ons for ways to verify add-ons prior to installation.

The first time the Add-on Store is opened, NVDA displays a warning about add-ons. Add-ons are not vetted by NV Access and may have unrestricted functionality and access to information. Press spacebar if you have read the warning and do not need to see it next time. Press tab to reach the "OK" button, then enter to accept the warning and proceed to the Add-on Store. The "Add-ons and the Add-on Store" section of the User Guide contains information about every feature of the Add-on Store.

The Add-on Store is available from the Tools menu. Press NVDA+n to open the NVDA menu, then t for tools, then a for Add-on Store. When the Add-on Store opens, it shows "Available add-ons" if no add-ons are installed. When add-ons are installed, the Add-on Store opens to the "Installed add-ons" tab.

Available add-ons

When the window first opens, add-ons may take a few seconds to load. NVDA will read the name of the first add-on once the list of add-ons finishes loading. Available add-ons are listed alphabetically in a multi-column list. To browse the list and find out about a specific add-on:

Use the arrow keys or press the first letter of an add-on name to move around the list.

Press tab once to move to a description of the currently selected add-on.

Use the reading keys or arrow keys to read the full description.

Press tab to the "Actions" button, which can be used to install the add-on, among other actions.

Press tab to "Other Details", which lists details such as the publisher, version and homepage.

To return to the list of add-ons, press alt+a, or shift+tab until reaching the list.

Searching for add-ons

As well as browsing all available add-ons, it is possible to filter the add-ons shown. To search, press alt+s to jump to the "Search" field and type the text to search for. Searching checks for matches in the add-on ID, display name, publisher, author and description fields. The list updates while typing the search terms. Once done, press tab to go to the filtered list of add-ons and browse the results.

Installing add-ons

To install an add-on:

With the focus on an add-on you would like to install, press enter.

The actions menu opens with a list of actions; the first action is "Install".

To install the add-on, press i or downArrow to "Install" and press enter.

The focus returns to the add-on in the list and NVDA will read the details about the add-on.

The "Status" information reported by NVDA changes from "Available" to "Downloading".

Once the add-on has finished downloading, it will change to "Downloaded. Pending install".

Repeat with any other add-ons you would like to install at the same time.

Once finished, press tab until the focus is on the "Close" button, then press enter.

The downloaded add-ons will start the installation process once the Add-on Store is closed. During the installation process, add-ons may display dialogs that you will need to respond to.

When the add-ons have been installed, a dialog appears advising that changes were made, and you must restart NVDA for the add-on installation to complete.

Press enter to restart NVDA.

Managing installed add-ons

Press control+tab to move between the tabs of the Add-on Store. The tabs include: "Installed add-ons", "Updatable add-ons", "Available add-ons" and "Installed incompatible add-ons". Each of the tabs are set out similar to each other, as a list of add-ons, a panel for more details on the selected add-on, and a button to perform actions for the selected add-on. The actions menu of installed add-ons includes "Disable" and "Remove" rather than "Install". Disabling an add-on stops NVDA from loading it, but leaves it installed. To re-enable a disabled add-on, activate "Enable" from the actions menu. After enabling, disabling, or removing add-ons, you will be prompted to restart NVDA when closing the Add-on Store. These changes will only take effect once NVDA is restarted. Note that in the Add-on Store window escape works the same as the Close button.

Updating add-ons

When an update to an add-on you have installed is available, it will be listed in the "Updatable add-ons" tab. Press control+tab to get to this tab from anywhere in the Add-on Store. The status of the add-on will be listed as "Update available". The list will display the currently installed version and the available version. Press enter on the add-on to open the actions list; choose "Update".

Community

NVDA has a vibrant user community. There is a main English language email list and a page full of local language groups. NV Access, makers of NVDA, are active on Twitter and Facebook. NV Access also have a regular In-Process blog.

There is also an NVDA Certified Expert program. This is an online exam you can complete to demonstrate your skills in NVDA. NVDA Certified Experts can list their contact and relevant business details.

Getting help

To get help for NVDA, press NVDA+n to open the menu, then h for help. From this submenu you can access the User Guide, a quick reference of commands, history of new features and more. These first three options open in the default web browser. There is also more comprehensive Training Material available in the NV Access Shop.

We recommend starting with the "Basic Training for NVDA module". This module covers concepts from getting started up to browsing the web and using object navigation. It is available in:

Electronic text, which includes Word DOCX, Web page HTML, eBook ePub and Kindle KFX formats.

Human-read, MP3 audio

Hard-copy UEB Braille with delivery included anywhere in the world.

Other modules, and the discounted NVDA Productivity Bundle, are available in the NV Access Shop.

NV Access also sells telephone support, either in blocks, or as part of the NVDA Productivity Bundle. Telephone support includes local numbers in Australia and the USA.

The email user groups are a great source of community help, as are certified NVDA experts.

You can make bug reports or feature requests via GitHub. The contribution guidelines contain valuable information for contributing to the community.

More Setup Options

Installation Options

If installing NVDA directly from the downloaded NVDA launcher, press the Install NVDA button. If you have already closed this dialog or are wanting to install from a portable copy, please choose the Install NVDA menu item found under Tools in the NVDA menu.

The installation dialog that appears will confirm whether you wish to install NVDA and will also tell you whether this installation will be updating a previous install. Pressing the Continue button will start installing NVDA. There are also a few options in this dialog which are explained below. Once the installation has completed, a message will appear telling you that it was successful. Pressing OK at this point will restart the newly installed copy of NVDA.

Incompatible add-ons warning

If you have add-ons already installed there may also be a warning that incompatible add-ons will be disabled. Before you're able to press the Continue button you will have to use the checkbox to confirm that you understand that these add-ons will be disabled. There will also be a button present to review the add-ons that will be disabled. Refer to the incompatible add-ons dialog section for more help on this button. After installation, you are able to re-enable incompatible add-ons at your own risk from within the Add-on Store.

Use NVDA during sign-in

This option allows you to choose whether or not NVDA should automatically start while at the Windows sign-in screen, before you have entered a password. This also includes User Account Control and other secure screens. This option is enabled by default for fresh installations.

Create Desktop Shortcut (ctrl+alt+n)

This option allows you to choose whether or not NVDA should create a shortcut on the desktop to start NVDA. If created, this shortcut will also be assigned a shortcut key of control+alt+n, allowing you to start NVDA at any time with this keystroke.

Copy Portable Configuration to Current User Account

This option allows you to choose whether or not NVDA should copy the user configuration from the currently running NVDA into the configuration for the currently logged on user, for the installed copy of NVDA. This will not copy the configuration for any other users of this system nor to the system configuration for use during Windows sign-in and other secure screens. This option is only available when installing from a portable copy, not when installing directly from the downloaded Launcher package.

Creating a Portable Copy

If creating a portable copy directly from the NVDA download package, press the Create Portable Copy button. If you have already closed this dialog or you are running an installed copy of NVDA, choose the Create Portable copy menu item found under Tools in the NVDA menu.

The Dialog that appears allows you to choose where the portable copy should be created. This can be a directory on your hard drive or a location on a USB thumb drive or other portable media. There is also an option to choose whether NVDA should copy the logged on user's current NVDA configuration for use with the newly created portable copy. This option is only available when creating a portable copy from an installed copy, not when creating from the download package. Pressing Continue will create the portable copy. Once creation is complete, a message will appear telling you it was successful. Press OK to dismiss this dialog.

Portable and Temporary Copy Restrictions

If you want to take NVDA with you on a USB thumb drive or other writable media, then you should choose to create a portable copy. The installed copy is also able to create a portable copy of itself at any time. The portable copy also has the ability to install itself on any computer at a later time. However, if you wish to copy NVDA onto read-only media such as a CD, you should just copy the download package. Running the portable version directly from read-only media is not supported at this time.

The NVDA installer can be used as a temporary copy of NVDA. Temporary copies prevent saving NVDA settings. This includes disabling usage of the Add-on Store.

Portable and temporary copies of NVDA have the following restrictions:

The inability to automatically start during and/or after log-on.

The inability to interact with applications running with administrative privileges, unless of course NVDA itself has been run also with these privileges (not recommended).

The inability to read User Account Control (UAC) screens when trying to start an application with administrative privileges.

The inability to support input from a touchscreen.

The inability to provide features such as browse mode and speaking of typed characters in Windows Store apps.

Audio ducking is not supported.

Using NVDA

Launching NVDA

If you have installed NVDA with the installer, then starting NVDA is as simple as either pressing control+alt+n, or choosing NVDA from the NVDA menu under Programs on the Start Menu. Additionally you can type NVDA into the Run dialog and press Enter. If NVDA is already running, it will be restarted. You can also pass some command line options which allows you to quit (-q), disable add-ons (--disable-addons), etc.

For installed copies, NVDA stores the configuration in the roaming application data folder of the current user by default (e.g. "C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming"). It is possible to change this in a way that NVDA loads its configuration from the local application data folder instead. Consult the section about system wide parameters for more details.

To start the portable version, go to the directory you unpacked NVDA to, and press enter or double click on nvda.exe. If NVDA was already running, it will automatically stop before starting the portable version.

As NVDA starts, you will first hear an ascending set of tones (telling you that NVDA is loading). Depending on how fast your computer is, or if you are running NVDA off a USB key or other slow media, it may take a little while to start. If it is taking an extra-long time to start, NVDA should say "Loading NVDA. Please wait..."

If you don't hear any of this, or you hear the Windows error sound, or a descending set of tones, then this means that NVDA has an error, and you will need to possibly report a bug to the developers. Please check out the NVDA website for how to do this.

Welcome Dialog

When NVDA starts for the first time, you will be greeted by a dialog box which provides you with some basic information about the NVDA modifier key and the NVDA menu. (Please see further sections about these topics.) The dialog box also contains a combo box and three checkboxes. The combo box lets you select the keyboard layout. The first checkbox lets you control if NVDA should use the Caps Lock as an NVDA modifier key. The second specifies whether NVDA should start automatically after you log on to Windows and is only available for installed copies of NVDA. The third lets you control if this Welcome dialog should appear each time NVDA starts.

Data usage statistics dialog

Starting from NVDA 2018.3, the user is asked if they want to allow usage data to be sent to NV Access in order to help improve NVDA in the future. When starting NVDA for the first time, a dialog will appear which will ask you if you want to accept sending data to NV Access while using NVDA. You can read more info about the data gathered by NV Access in the general settings section, Allow NV Access to gather NVDA usage statistics. Note: pressing on "yes" or "no" will save this setting and the dialog will never appear again unless you reinstall NVDA. However, you can enable or disable the data gathering process manually in NVDA's general settings panel. For changing this setting manually, you can check or uncheck the checkbox called Allow the NVDA project to gather NVDA usage statistics.

About NVDA keyboard commands

The NVDA Modifier Key

Most NVDA-specific keyboard commands consist of pressing a particular key called the NVDA modifier key in conjunction with one or more other keys. Notable exceptions to this are the text review commands for the desktop keyboard layout which just use the numpad keys by themselves, but there are some other exceptions as well.

NVDA can be configured so that the numpad Insert, Extended Insert and/or Caps Lock key can be used as the NVDA modifier key. By default, both the numpad Insert and Extended Insert keys are set as NVDA modifier keys.

If you wish to cause one of the NVDA modifier keys to behave as it usually would if NVDA were not running (e.g. you wish to turn Caps Lock on when you have set Caps Lock to be an NVDA modifier key), you can press the key twice in quick succession.

Keyboard Layouts

NVDA currently comes with two sets of key commands (known as keyboard layouts): the desktop layout and the laptop layout. By default, NVDA is set to use the Desktop layout, though you can switch to the Laptop layout in the Keyboard category of the NVDA Settings dialog, found under Preferences in the NVDA menu.

The Desktop layout makes heavy use of the numpad (with Num Lock off). Although most laptops do not have a physical numpad, some laptops can emulate one by holding down the FN key and pressing letters and numbers on the right-hand side of the keyboard (7, 8, 9, u, i, o, j, k, l, etc.). If your laptop cannot do this or does not allow you to turn Num Lock off, you may want to switch to the Laptop layout instead.

NVDA Touch Gestures

If you are running NVDA on a device with a touchscreen, you can also control NVDA directly via touch commands. While NVDA is running, unless touch interaction support is disabled, all touch input will go directly to NVDA. Therefore, actions that can be performed normally without NVDA will not work.

To toggle touch interaction support, press NVDA+control+alt+t.

You can also enable or disable touch interaction support from the Touch Interaction category of the NVDA settings.

Exploring the Screen

The most basic action you can perform with the touch screen is to announce the control or text at any point on the screen. To do this, place one finger anywhere on the screen. You can also keep your finger on the screen and move it around to read other controls and text that your finger moves over.

Touch Gestures

When NVDA commands are described later in this user guide, they may list a touch gesture which can be used to activate that command with the touchscreen. Following are some instructions on how to perform the various touch gestures.

Taps

Tap the screen quickly with one or more fingers.

Tapping once with one finger is simply known as a tap. Tapping with 2 fingers at the same time is a 2-finger tap and so on.

If the same tap is performed one or more times again in quick succession, NVDA will instead treat this as a multi-tap gesture. Tapping twice will result in a double-tap. Tapping 3 times will result in a triple-tap and so on. Of course, these multi-tap gestures also recognize how many fingers were used, so it's possible to have gestures like a 2-finger triple-tap, a 4-finger tap, etc.

Flicks

Quickly swipe your finger across the screen.

There are 4 possible flick gestures depending on the direction: flick left, flick right, flick up and flick down.

Just like taps, more than one finger can be used to perform the gesture. Therefore, gestures such as 2-finger flick up and 4-finger flick left are all possible.

Touch Modes

As there are many more NVDA commands than possible touch gestures, NVDA has several touch modes you can switch between which make certain subsets of commands available. The two modes are text mode and object mode. Certain NVDA commands listed in this document may have a touch mode listed in brackets after the touch gesture. For example, flick up (text mode) means that the command will be performed if you flick up, but only while in text mode. If the command does not have a mode listed, it will work in any mode.

To toggle touch modes, perform a 3-finger tap.

Touch keyboard

The touch keyboard is used to enter text and commands from a touchscreen. When focused on an edit field, you can bring up the touch keyboard by double-tapping the touch keyboard icon on the bottom of the screen. For tablets such as Microsoft Surface Pro, the touch keyboard is always available when the keyboard is undocked. To dismiss the touch keyboard, double-tap the touch keyboard icon or move away from the edit field.

While the touch keyboard is active, to locate keys on the touch keyboard, move your finger to where the touch keyboard is located (typically at the bottom of the screen), then move around the keyboard with one finger. When you find the key you wish to press, double-tap the key or lift your finger, depending on options chosen from the Touch Interaction Settings category of the NVDA Settings.

Input Help Mode

Many NVDA commands are mentioned throughout the rest of this user guide, but an easy way to explore all the different commands is to turn on input help.

To turn on input help, press NVDA+1. To turn it off, press NVDA+1 again. While in input help, performing any input gesture (such as pressing a key or performing a touch gesture) will report the action and describe what it does (if anything). The actual commands will not execute while in input help mode.

The NVDA menu

The NVDA menu allows you to control NVDA's settings, access help, save/revert your configuration, Modify speech dictionaries, access additional tools and exit NVDA.

To get to the NVDA menu from anywhere in Windows while NVDA is running, you may do any of the following:

press NVDA+n on the keyboard.

Perform a 2-finger double-tap on the touch screen.

Access the system tray by pressing Windows+b, downArrow to the NVDA icon, and press enter.

Alternatively, access the system tray by pressing Windows+b, downArrow to the NVDA icon, and open the context menu by pressing the applications key located next to the right control key on most keyboards. On a keyboard without an applications key, press shift+f10 instead.

Right-click on the NVDA icon located in the Windows system tray

When the menu comes up, You can use the arrow keys to navigate the menu, and the enter key to activate an item.

Basic NVDA commands

Name Desktop key Laptop key Touch Description Starts or restarts NVDA Control+alt+n Control+alt+n none Starts or restarts NVDA from the Desktop, if this Windows shortcut is enabled during NVDA's installation process. This is a Windows specific shortcut and therefore it cannot be reassigned in the input gestures dialog. Stop speech Control control 2-finger tap Instantly stops speaking Pause Speech shift shift none Instantly pauses speech. Pressing it again will continue speaking where it left off (if pausing is supported by the current synthesizer) NVDA Menu NVDA+n NVDA+n 2-finger double-tap Pops up the NVDA menu to allow you to access preferences, tools, help, etc. Toggle Input Help Mode NVDA+1 NVDA+1 none Pressing any key in this mode will report the key, and the description of any NVDA command associated with it Quit NVDA NVDA+q NVDA+q none Exits NVDA Pass next key through NVDA+f2 NVDA+f2 none Tells NVDA to pass the next key press straight through to the active application - even if it is normally treated as an NVDA key command Toggle application sleep mode on and off NVDA+shift+s NVDA+shift+z none 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. Press this command again to disable sleep mode - note that NVDA will only retain the Sleep Mode setting until it is restarted.

Reporting System Information

Name key Description Report date/time NVDA+f12 Pressing once reports the current time, pressing twice reports the date Report battery status NVDA+shift+b Reports the battery status i.e. whether AC power is in use or the current charge percentage. Report clipboard text NVDA+c Reports the Text on the clipboard if there is any.

Speech modes

The speech mode governs how screen content, notifications, responses to commands, and other output is spoken during operation of NVDA. The default mode is "talk", which speaks in situations that are expected when using a screen reader. However, under certain circumstances, or when running particular programs, you may find one of the other speech modes valuable.

The four available speech modes are:

Talk (Default): NVDA will speak normally in reaction to screen changes, notifications, and actions such as moving the focus, or issuing commands.

On-demand: NVDA will only speak when you use commands with a reporting function (e.g. report the title of the window); but it will not speak in reaction to actions such as moving the focus or the cursor.

Off: NVDA will not speak anything, however unlike sleep mode, it will silently react to commands.

Beeps: NVDA will replace normal speech with short beeps.

The Beeps mode may be useful when some very verbose output is scrolling in a terminal window, but you don't care what it is, only that it is continuing to scroll; or in other circumstances when the fact that there is output is more relevant than the output itself.

The On-demand mode may be valuable when you don't need constant feedback about what is happening on screen or on the computer, but you periodically need to check particular things using review commands, etc. Examples include while recording audio, when using screen magnification, during a meeting or a call, or as an alternative to beeps mode.

A gesture allows cycling through the various speech modes:

Name Key Description Cycle Speech Mode NVDA+s Cycles between speech modes.

If you only need to switch between a limited subset of speech modes, see Modes available in the Cycle speech mode command for a way to disable unwanted modes.

Navigating with NVDA

NVDA allows you to explore and navigate the system in several ways, including both normal interaction and review.

Objects

Each Application and the operating system itself consist of many objects. An object is a single item such as a piece of text, button, checkbox, slider, list or editable text field.

Navigating with the System Focus

The system focus, also known simply as the focus, is the object which receives keys typed on the keyboard. For example, if you are typing into an editable text field, the editable text field has the focus.

The most common way of navigating around Windows with NVDA is to simply move the system focus using standard Windows keyboard commands, such as pressing tab and shift+tab to move forward and back between controls, pressing alt to get to the menu bar and then using the arrows to navigate menus, and using alt+tab to move between running applications. As you do this, NVDA will report information about the object with focus, such as its name, type, value, state, description, keyboard shortcut and positional information. When Visual Highlight is enabled, the location of the current system focus is also exposed visually.

There are some key commands that are useful when moving with the System focus:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Report current focus NVDA+tab NVDA+tab announces the current object or control that has the System focus. Pressing twice will spell the information Report title NVDA+t NVDA+t Reports the title of the currently active window. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will copy it to the clipboard Read active window NVDA+b NVDA+b reads all the controls in the currently active window (useful for dialogs) Report Status Bar NVDA+end NVDA+shift+end Reports the Status Bar if NVDA finds one. Pressing twice will spell the information. Pressing three times will copy it to the clipboard Report Shortcut Key shift+numpad2 NVDA+control+shift+. Reports the shortcut (accelerator) key of the currently focused object

Navigating with the System Caret

When an object that allows navigation and/or editing of text is focused, you can move through the text using the system caret, also known as the edit cursor.

When the focus is on an object that has the system caret, you can use the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, end, etc. to move through the text. You can also change the text if the control supports editing. NVDA will announce as you move by character, word and line, and will also announce as you select and unselect text.

NVDA provides the following key commands in relation to the system caret:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Description Say all NVDA+downArrow NVDA+a Starts reading from the current position of the system caret, moving it along as it goes Read current line NVDA+upArrow NVDA+l Reads the line where the system caret is currently situated. Pressing twice spells the line. Pressing three times spells the line using character descriptions. Read current text selection NVDA+Shift+upArrow NVDA+shift+s Reads any currently selected text Report text formatting NVDA+f NVDA+f Reports the formatting of the text where the caret is currently situated. Pressing twice shows the information in browse mode Report link destination NVDA+k NVDA+k Pressing once speaks the destination URL of the link at the current caret or focus position. Pressing twice shows it in a window for more careful review Report caret location NVDA+numpadDelete NVDA+delete Reports information about the location of the text or object at the position of system caret. For example, this might include the percentage through the document, the distance from the edge of the page or the exact screen position. Pressing twice may provide further detail. Next sentence alt+downArrow alt+downArrow Moves the caret to the next sentence and announces it. (only supported in Microsoft Word and Outlook) Previous sentence alt+upArrow alt+upArrow Moves the caret to the previous sentence and announces it. (only supported in Microsoft Word and Outlook)

When within a table, the following key commands are also available:

Name Key Description Move to previous column control+alt+leftArrow Moves the system caret to the previous column (staying in the same row) Move to next column control+alt+rightArrow Moves the system caret to the next column (staying in the same row) Move to previous row control+alt+upArrow Moves the system caret to the previous row (staying in the same column) Move to next row control+alt+downArrow Moves the system caret to the next row (staying in the same column) Move to first column control+alt+home Moves the system caret to the first column (staying in the same row) Move to last column control+alt+end Moves the system caret to the last column (staying in the same row) Move to first row control+alt+pageUp Moves the system caret to the first row (staying in the same column) Move to last row control+alt+pageDown Moves the system caret to the last row (staying in the same column) Say all in column NVDA+control+alt+downArrow Reads the column vertically from the current cell downwards to the last cell in the column. Say all in row NVDA+control+alt+rightArrow Reads the row horizontally from the current cell rightwards to the last cell in the row. Read entire column NVDA+control+alt+upArrow Reads the current column vertically from top to bottom without moving the system caret. Read entire row NVDA+control+alt+leftArrow Reads the current row horizontally from left to right without moving the system caret.

Object Navigation

Most of the time, you will work with applications using commands which move the focus and the caret. However, sometimes, you may wish to explore the current application or the Operating System without moving the focus or caret. You may also wish to work with objects that cannot be accessed normally using the keyboard. In these cases, you can use object navigation.

Object navigation allows you to move between and obtain information about individual objects. When you move to an object, NVDA will report it similarly to the way it reports the system focus. For a way to review all text as it appears on the screen, you can instead use screen review.

Rather than having to move back and forth between every single object on the system, the objects are organized hierarchically. This means that some objects contain other objects and you must move inside them to access the objects they contain. For example, a list contains list items, so you must move inside the list in order to access its items. If you have moved to a list item, moving next and previous will take you to other list items in the same list. Moving to a list item's containing object will take you back to the list. You can then move past the list if you wish to access other objects. Similarly, a toolbar contains controls, so you must move inside the toolbar to access the controls in the toolbar.

If you yet prefer to move back and forth between every single object on the system, you can use commands to move to the previous/next object in a flattened view. For example, if you move to the next object in this flattened view and the current object contains other objects, NVDA will automatically move to the first object that it contains. Alternatively, if the current object doesn't contain any objects, NVDA will move to the next object at the current level of the hierarchy. If there is no such next object, NVDA will try to find the next object in the hierarchy based on containing objects until there are no more objects to move to. The same rules apply to moving backwards in the hierarchy.

The object currently being reviewed is called the navigator object. Once you navigate to an object, you can review its content using the text review commands while in Object review mode. When Visual Highlight is enabled, the location of the current navigator object is also exposed visually. By default, the navigator object moves along with the System focus, though this behaviour can be toggled on and off.

Note: Braille following Object Navigation can be configured via Braille Tether.

To navigate by object, use the following commands:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Touch Description Report current object NVDA+numpad5 NVDA+shift+o none 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 NVDA+shift+upArrow flick up (object mode) Moves to the object containing the current navigator object Move to previous object NVDA+numpad4 NVDA+shift+leftArrow none Moves to the object before the current navigator object Move to previous object in flattened view NVDA+numpad9 NVDA+shift+[ flick left (object mode) Moves to the previous object in a flattened view of the object navigation hierarchy Move to next object NVDA+numpad6 NVDA+shift+rightArrow none Moves to the object after the current navigator object Move to next object in flattened view NVDA+numpad3 NVDA+shift+] flick right (object mode) Moves to the next object in a flattened view of the object navigation hierarchy Move to first contained object NVDA+numpad2 NVDA+shift+downArrow flick down (object mode) Moves to the first object contained by the current navigator object Move to focus object NVDA+numpadMinus NVDA+backspace none 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+numpadEnter NVDA+enter double-tap 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+numpadMinus NVDA+shift+backspace none 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 review cursor location NVDA+shift+numpadDelete NVDA+shift+delete none Reports information about the location of the text or object at the review cursor. For example, this might include the percentage through the document, the distance from the edge of the page or the exact screen position. Pressing twice may provide further detail. Move review cursor to status bar none none none Reports the Status Bar if NVDA finds one. It also moves the navigator object to this location.

Note: numpad keys require the Num Lock to be turned off to work properly.

Reviewing Text

NVDA allows you to read the contents of the screen, current document or current object by character, word or line. This is mostly useful in places (including Windows command consoles) where there is no system caret. For example, you might use it to review the text of a long information message in a dialog.

When moving the review cursor, the System caret does not follow along, so you can review text without losing your editing position. However, by default, when the System caret moves, the review cursor follows along. This can be toggled on and off.

Note: Braille following the review cursor can be configured via Braille Tether.

The following commands are available for reviewing text:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Touch Description Move to top line in review shift+numpad7 NVDA+control+home none Moves the review cursor to the top line of the text Move to previous line in review numpad7 NVDA+upArrow flick up (text mode) Moves the review cursor to the previous line of text Report current line in review numpad8 NVDA+shift+. none 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. Move to next line in review numpad9 NVDA+downArrow flick down (text mode) Move the review cursor to the next line of text Move to bottom line in review shift+numpad9 NVDA+control+end none Moves the review cursor to the bottom line of text Move to previous word in review numpad4 NVDA+control+leftArrow 2-finger flick left (text mode) Moves the review cursor to the previous word in the text Report current word in review numpad5 NVDA+control+. none 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. Move to next word in review numpad6 NVDA+control+rightArrow 2-finger flick right (text mode) Move the review cursor to the next word in the text Move to start of line in review shift+numpad1 NVDA+home none Moves the review cursor to the start of the current line in the text Move to previous character in review numpad1 NVDA+leftArrow flick left (text mode) Moves the review cursor to the previous character on the current line in the text Report current character in review numpad2 NVDA+. none 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. Move to next character in review numpad3 NVDA+rightArrow flick right (text mode) Move the review cursor to the next character on the current line of text Move to end of line in review shift+numpad3 NVDA+end none Moves the review cursor to the end of the current line of text Move to previous page in review NVDA+pageUp NVDA+shift+pageUp none Moves the review cursor to the previous page of text if supported by the application Move to next page in review NVDA+pageDown NVDA+shift+pageDown none Moves the review cursor to the next page of text if supported by the application Say all with review numpadPlus NVDA+shift+a 3-finger flick down (text mode) Reads from the current position of the review cursor, moving it as it goes Select then Copy from review cursor NVDA+f9 NVDA+f9 none Starts the select then copy process from the current position of the review cursor. The actual action is not performed until you tell NVDA where the end of the text range is Select then Copy to review cursor NVDA+f10 NVDA+f10 none On the first press, text is selected from the position previously set as start marker up to and including the review cursor's current position. If the system caret can reach the text, it will be moved to the selected text. After pressing this key stroke a second time, the text will be copied to the Windows clipboard Move to marked start for copy in review NVDA+shift+f9 NVDA+shift+f9 none Moves the review cursor to the position previously set start marker for copy Report text formatting NVDA+shift+f NVDA+shift+f none Reports the formatting of the text where the review cursor is currently situated. Pressing twice shows the information in browse mode Report current symbol replacement None None none Speaks the symbol where the review cursor is positioned. Pressed twice, shows the symbol and the text used to speak it in browse mode.

Note: numpad keys require the Num Lock to be turned off to work properly.

A good way to remember the basic text review commands when using the Desktop layout is to think of them as being 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 Current line Next line Previous word Current word Next word Previous character Current character Next character

Review Modes

NVDA's text review commands can review content within the current navigator object, current document or screen, depending on the review mode selected.

The following commands switch between review modes:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Touch Description Switch to next review mode NVDA+numpad7 NVDA+pageUp 2-finger flick up switches to the next available review mode Switch to previous review mode NVDA+numpad1 NVDA+pageDown 2-finger flick down switches to the previous available review mode

Object Review

While in object review mode, you are able to only review the content of the current navigator object. For objects such as editable text fields or other basic text controls, this will generally be the text content. For other objects, this may be the name and/or value.

Document Review

When the navigator object is within a browse mode document (e.g. web page) or other complex document (e.g. a Lotus Symphony document), it is possible to switch to the document review mode. The document review mode allows you to review the text of the entire document.

When switching from object review to document review, the review cursor is placed in the document at the position of the navigator object. When moving around the document with review commands, the navigator object is automatically updated to the object found at the current review cursor position.

Note that NVDA will switch to document review from object review automatically when moving around browse mode documents.

Screen Review

The screen review mode allows you to review the text of the screen as it appears visually within the current application. This is similar to the screen review or mouse cursor functionality in many other Windows screen readers.

When switching to screen review mode, the review cursor is placed at the screen position of the current navigator object. When moving around the screen with review commands, the navigator object is automatically updated to the object found at the screen position of the review cursor.

Note that in some newer applications, NVDA may not see some or all text displayed on the screen due to the use of newer screen drawing technologies which are impossible to support at this time.

Navigating with the Mouse

When you move the mouse, NVDA by default reports the text that is directly under the mouse pointer as the pointer moves over it. Where supported, NVDA will read the surrounding paragraph of text, though some controls may only read by line.

NVDA can be configured to also announce the type of object under the mouse as it moves (e.g. list, button, etc.). This may be useful for totally blind users, as sometimes, the text isn't enough.

NVDA provides a way for users to understand where the mouse is located relative to the dimensions of the screen by playing the current mouse coordinates as audio beeps. The higher the mouse is on the screen, the higher the pitch of the beeps. The further left or right the mouse is located on the screen, the further left or right the sound will be played (assuming the user has stereo speakers or headphones).

These extra mouse features are not turned on by default in NVDA. If you wish to take advantage of them, you can configure them from the Mouse settings category of the NVDA Settings dialog, found in the NVDA Preferences menu.

Although a physical mouse or trackpad should be used to navigate with the mouse, NVDA provides some commands related to the mouse:

Name Desktop key Laptop key Touch Description Left mouse button click numpadDivide NVDA+[ none 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+numpadDivide NVDA+control+[ none 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 numpadMultiply NVDA+] tap and hold Clicks the right mouse button once, mostly used to open context menu at the location of the mouse. Right mouse button lock shift+numpadMultiply NVDA+control+] none 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+numpadDivide NVDA+shift+m none Moves the mouse to the location of the current navigator object and review cursor Navigate to the object under the mouse NVDA+numpadMultiply NVDA+shift+n none Set the navigator object to the object located at the position of the mouse

Browse Mode

Complex read-only documents such as web pages are browsed in NVDA using browse mode. This includes documents in the following applications:

Mozilla Firefox

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Mozilla Thunderbird

HTML messages in Microsoft Outlook

Google Chrome

Microsoft Edge

Adobe Reader

Foxit Reader

Supported books in Amazon Kindle for PC

Browse mode is also optionally available for Microsoft Word documents.

In browse mode, the content of the document is made available in a flat representation that can be navigated with the cursor keys as if it were a normal text document. All of NVDA's system caret key commands will work in this mode; e.g. say all, report formatting, table navigation commands, etc. When Visual Highlight is enabled, the location of the virtual browse mode caret is also exposed visually. Information such as whether text is a link, heading, etc. is reported along with the text as you move.

Sometimes, you will need to interact directly with controls in these documents. For example, you will need to do this for editable text fields and lists so that you can type characters and use the cursor keys to work with the control. You do this by switching to focus mode, where almost all keys are passed to the control. When in Browse mode, by default, NVDA will automatically switch to focus mode if you tab to or click on a particular control that requires it. Conversely, tabbing to or clicking on a control that does not require focus mode will switch back to browse mode. You can also press enter or space to switch to focus mode on controls that require it. Pressing escape will switch back to browse mode. In addition, you can manually force focus mode, after which it will remain in effect until you choose to disable it.

Name Key Description Toggle browse/focus modes NVDA+space Toggles between focus mode and browse mode Exit focus mode escape Switches back to browse mode if focus mode was previously switched to automatically Refresh browse mode document NVDA+f5 Reloads the current document content (useful if certain content seems to be missing from the document. Not available in Microsoft Word and Outlook.) Find NVDA+control+f Pops up a dialog in which you can type some text to find in the current document. See searching for text for more information. Find next NVDA+f3 Finds the next occurrence of the text in the document that you previously searched for Find previous NVDA+shift+f3 Finds the previous occurrence of the text in the document you previously searched for

Single Letter Navigation

While in browse mode, for quicker navigation, NVDA also provides single character keys to jump to certain fields in the document. Note that not all of these commands are supported in every type of document.

The following keys by themselves jump to the next available element, while adding the shift key causes them to jump to the previous element:

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: landmark

o: embedded object (audio and video player, application, dialog, etc.)

1 to 6: headings at levels 1 to 6 respectively

a: annotation (comment, editor revision, etc.)

p: text paragraph

w: spelling error

To move to the beginning or end of containing elements such as lists and tables:

Name Key Description Move to start of container shift+comma Moves to the start of the container (list, table, etc.) where the caret is positioned Move past end of container comma Moves past the end of the container (list, table, etc.) where the caret is positioned

Some web applications such as Gmail, Twitter and Facebook use single letters as shortcut keys. If you want to use these while still being able to use your cursor keys to read in browse mode, you can temporarily disable NVDA's single letter navigation keys.

To toggle single letter navigation on and off for the current document, press NVDA+shift+space.

Text paragraph navigation command

You can jump to the next or previous text paragraph by pressing p or shift+p. Text paragraphs are defined by a group of text that appears to be written in complete sentences. This can be useful to find the beginning of readable content on various webpages, such as:

News websites

Forums

Blog posts

These commands can also be helpful for skipping certain kinds of clutter, such as:

Ads

Menus

Headers

Please note, however, that while NVDA tries its best to identify text paragraphs, the algorithm is not perfect and at times can make mistakes. Additionally, this command is different from paragraph navigation commands control+downArrow/upArrow. Text paragraph navigation only jumps between text paragraphs, while paragraph navigation commands take the cursor to the previous/next paragraphs regardless of whether they contain text or not.

Other navigation commands

In addition to the quick navigation commands listed above, NVDA has commands that have no default keys assigned. To use these commands, you first need to assign gestures to them using the Input Gestures dialog. Here is a list of available commands:

Article

Figure

Grouping

Tab

Menu item

Toggle button

Progress bar

Math formula

Vertically aligned paragraph

Same style text

Different style text

Keep in mind that there are two commands for each type of element, for moving forward in the document and backward in the document, and you must assign gestures to both commands in order to be able to quickly navigate in both directions. For example, if you want to use the y / shift+y keys to quickly navigate through tabs, you would do the following:

Open input gestures dialog from browse mode.

Find "moves to the next tab" item in the Browse mode section.

Assign y key for found gesture.

Find "moves to the previous tab" item.

Assign shift+y for found gesture.

The Elements List

The elements list provides access to a list of various types of elements in the document as appropriate for the application. For example, in web browsers, the elements list can list links, headings, form fields, buttons or landmarks. Radio buttons allow you to switch between the different types of elements. An edit field is also provided in the dialog which allows you to filter the list to help you search for a particular item on the page. Once you have chosen an item, you can use the provided buttons in the dialog to move to or activate that item.

Name Key Description Browse mode elements list NVDA+f7 Lists various types of elements in the current document

Searching for text

This dialog allows you to search for terms in the current document. In the "Type the text you wish to find" field, the text to be found can be entered. The "Case sensitive" checkbox makes the search consider uppercase and lowercase letters differently. For example, with "Case sensitive" selected you can find "NV Access" but not "nv access". Use the following keys for performing searches:

Name Key Description Find text NVDA+control+f Opens the search dialog Find next NVDA+f3 searches the next occurrence of the current search term Find previous NVDA+shift+f3 searches the previous occurrence of the current search term

Embedded Objects

Pages can include rich content using technologies such as Oracle Java and HTML5, as well as applications and dialogs. Where these are encountered in browse mode, NVDA will report "embedded object", "application" or "dialog", respectively. You can quickly move to them using the o and shift+o embedded object single letter navigation keys. To interact with these objects, you can press enter on 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:

Name Key Description Move to containing browse mode document NVDA+control+space Moves the focus out of the current embedded object and into the document that contains it

Native Selection Mode

By default when selecting text with the shift+arrow keys in Browse Mode, a selection is only made within NVDA's Browse Mode representation of the document, and not within the application itself. This means that the selection is not visible on screen, and copying text with control+c will only copy NVDA's plain text representation of the content. i.e. formatting of tables, or whether something is a link will not be copied. However, NVDA has a Native Selection Mode which can be turned on in particular Browse Mode documents (so far only Mozilla Firefox) which causes the document's native selection to follow NVDA's Browse Mode selection.

Name Key Description Toggle Native Selection Mode on and off NVDA+shift+f10 Toggles native selection mode on and off

When Native Selection Mode is turned on, copying the selection with control+c will also use the application's own copy functionality, meaning that rich content will be copied to the clipboard, rather than plain text. This means that pasting this content into a program such as Microsoft Word or Excel, formatting such as tables, or whether something is a link will be included. Please note however that in native selection mode, some accessible labels or other information that NVDA generates in Browse Mode will not be included. Also, although the application will try its best to match the native selection to NVDA's Browse Mode selection, it may not always be completely accurate. However, for scenarios where you wish to copy an entire table or paragraph of rich content, this feature should prove useful.

Reading Mathematical Content

NVDA can read and navigate mathematical content on the web and in other applications, providing access in both speech and braille. However, in order for NVDA to read and interact with mathematical content, you will first need to install a Math component for NvDA. There are several NVDA add-ons available in the NVDA Add-on Store that provide support for math, including the MathCAT NVDA add-on and Access8Math. Please refer to the Add-on Store section to learn how to browse and install available add-ons in NVDA. NVDA also can make use of the older MathPlayer software from Wiris if found on your system, though this software is no longer maintained.

Supported math content

With an appropriate math component installed, NVDA supports the following types of mathematical content:

MathML in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

Microsoft Word 365 Modern Math Equations via UI automation: NVDA is able to read and interact with math equations in Microsoft Word 365/2016 build 14326 and higher. Note however that any previously created MathType equations must be first converted to Office Math. This can be done by selecting each and choosing "Equation Options", then "Convert to Office Math" in the context menu. Ensure your version of MathType is the latest version before doing this. Microsoft Word provides linear symbol-based navigation through the equations itself and supports inputting math using several syntaxes, including LateX. For further details, please see Linear format equations using UnicodeMath and LaTeX in Word

Microsoft Powerpoint, and older versions of Microsoft Word: NVDA can read and navigate MathType equations in both Microsoft Powerpoint and Microsoft word. MathType needs to be installed in order for this to work. The trial version is sufficient. It can be downloaded from the MathType presentation page.

Adobe Reader: Note that this is not an official standard yet, so there is currently no publicly available software that can produce this content.

Kindle Reader for PC: NVDA can read and navigate Math in Kindle for PC for books with accessible math.

When reading a document, NVDA will speak any supported mathematical content where it occurs. If you are using a braille display, it will also be displayed in braille.

Interactive Navigation

If you are working primarily with speech, in most cases, you will probably wish to examine the expression in smaller segments, rather than hearing the entire expression at once.

If you are in browse mode, you can do this by moving the cursor to the mathematical content and pressing enter.

If you are not in browse mode:

move the review cursor to the mathematical content. By default, the review cursor follows the system caret, so you can usually use the system caret to move to the desired content.

Then, activate the following command:

Name Key Description Interact with math content NVDA+alt+m Begins interaction with math content.

At this point, NVDA will enter Math mode, where you can use commands such as the arrow keys to explore the expression. For example, you can move through the expression with the left and right arrow keys and zoom into a portion of the expression such as a fraction using the down arrow key.

When you wish to return to the document, simply press the escape key.

For more information on available commands and preferences for reading and navigating within math content, please refer to the documentation for your particular math component you have installed.

MathCAT documentation

Access8Math documentation

MathPlayer documentation

Sometimes mathematical content might be displayed as a button or other type of element which, when activated, can display a dialog or more information related to the formula. To activate the button or the element containing the formula, press ctrl+enter.

Installing MathPlayer

Although it is generally recommended to use one of the newer NVDA add-ons to support math in NVDA, in certain limited scenarios MathPlayer may still be a more suitable choice. E.g. MathPlayer may support a particular language or Braille code that is unsupported in newer add-ons. MathPlayer is available for free from the Wiris website. Download MathPlayer. After installing MathPlayer, you will need to restart NVDA. Please note that information about MathPlayer may state that it is only for older browsers such as Internet Explorer 8. This is only referring to using MathPlayer to display mathematical content visually, and can be ignored by those using it to read or navigate math with NVDA.

Braille

If you own a braille display, NVDA can display information in braille. If your braille display has a Perkins-style keyboard, you can also enter contracted or uncontracted braille. Braille can also be displayed on screen using the Braille Viewer instead of, or at the same time as, using a physical braille display.

Please see the Supported Braille Displays section for information about the supported braille displays. This section also contains information about what displays support NVDA's automatic background braille display detection functionality. You can configure braille using the Braille category of the NVDA Settings dialog.

Control Type, State and Landmark abbreviations

In order to fit as much information as possible on a braille display, the following abbreviations have been defined to indicate control type and state as well as landmarks.

Abbreviation Control type app application art article bqt block quote btn button drbtn drop down button spnbtn spin button splbtn split button tgbtn toggle button cap caption cbo combo box chk checkbox dlg dialog doc document edt editable text field pwdedt password edit embedded embedded object enote end note fig figure fnote foot note gra graphic grp grouping hN heading at level n, e.g. h1, h2. hlp help balloon lmk landmark lnk link vlnk visited link lst list mnu menu mnubar menu bar mnubtn menu button mnuitem menu item pnl panel prgbar progress bar bsyind busy indicator rbtn radio button scrlbar scroll bar sect section stbar status bar tabctl tab control tbl table cN table column number n, e.g. c1, c2. rN table row number n, e.g. r1, r2. term terminal tlbar tool bar tltip tool tip tv tree view tvbtn tree view button tvitem tree view item lv N a tree view item has a hierarchical level N wnd window â ¤â ¤â ¤â ¤â ¤ separator mrkd marked content

The following state indicators are also defined:

Abbreviation Control state ... displayed when an object supports autocompletion â¢â£¿â¡± displayed when an object (e.g. a toggle button) is pressed â¢â£â¡± displayed when an object (e.g. a toggle button) is not pressed â£â£¿â£¹ displayed when an object (e.g. a checkbox) is checked â£â£¸â£¹ displayed when an object (e.g. a checkbox) is half checked â£â£â£¹ displayed when an object (e.g. a checkbox) is not checked - displayed when an object (e.g. a tree view item) is collapsible + displayed when an object (e.g. a tree view item) is Expandable *** displayed when a protected control or document is encountered clk displayed when an object is clickable cmnt displayed when there is a comment for a spreadsheet cell or piece of text in a document frml displayed when there is a formula on a spreadsheet cell invalid displayed when an invalid entry has been made ldesc displayed when an object (usually a graphic) has a long description mln displayed when an edit field allows typing multiple lines of text such as comment fields on websites req displayed when a required form field is encountered ro displayed when an object (e.g. an editable text field) is read-only sel displayed when an object is selected nsel displayed when an object is not selected sorted asc displayed when an object is sorted ascending sorted desc displayed when an object is sorted descending submnu displayed when an object has a popup (usually a sub-menu)

Finally, the following abbreviations for landmarks are defined:

Abbreviation Landmark bnnr banner cinf content info cmpl complementary form form main main navi navigation srch search rgn region

Braille Input

NVDA supports entry of both uncontracted and contracted braille via a braille keyboard. You can select the translation table used to translate braille into text using the Input table setting in the Braille category of the NVDA Settings dialog.

When uncontracted braille is being used, text is inserted as soon as it is entered. When using contracted braille, text is inserted when you press space or enter at the end of a word. Note that translation can only reflect the braille word you are typing and cannot consider existing text. For example, if you are using a braille code that begins numbers with a number sign and you press backspace to move to the end of a number, you will need to type the number sign again to enter additional numbers.

Pressing dot 7 erases the last entered braille cell or character. Dot 8 translates any braille input and presses the enter key. Pressing dot 7 + dot 8 translates any braille input, but without adding a space or pressing enter.

Inputting keyboard shortcuts

NVDA supports inputting keyboard shortcuts and emulating keypresses using the braille display. This emulation comes in two forms: assigning a Braille input directly to some key press and using the virtual modifier keys.

Commonly-used keys, such as the arrow keys or pressing Alt to reach menus, can be mapped directly to Braille inputs. The driver for each Braille display comes pre-equipped with some of these assignments. You can change these assignments or add new emulated keys from the Input Gestures dialog.

While this approach is useful for commonly-pressed or unique keys (such as Tab), you may not want to assign a unique set of keys to each keyboard shortcut. To allow emulating keypresses where modifier keys are held down, NVDA provides commands to toggle the control, alt, shift, windows, and NVDA keys, along with commands for some combinations of those keys. To use these toggles, first press the command (or sequence of commands) for the modifier keys you want pressed. Then input the character that's part of the keyboard shortcut you want to input. For example, to produce control+f, use the "Toggle control key" command and then type an f, and to input control+alt+t, use either the "Toggle control key" and "Toggle alt key" commands, in either order, or the "Toggle control and alt keys" command, followed by typing a t.

If you accidentally toggle modifier keys, running the toggle command again will remove the modifier.

When typing in contracted Braille, using the modifier toggle keys will cause your input to be translated just as if you had pressed dots 7+8. In addition, the emulated keypress cannot reflect Braille typed before the modifier key was pressed. This means that, to type alt+2 with a Braille code that uses a number sign, you must first toggle Alt and then type a number sign.

Vision

While NVDA is primarily aimed at blind or vision impaired people who primarily use speech and/or braille to operate a computer, it also provides built-in facilities to change the contents of the screen. Within NVDA, such a visual aid is called a vision enhancement provider.

NVDA offers several built-in vision enhancement providers which are described below. Additional vision enhancement providers can be provided in NVDA add-ons.

NVDA's vision settings can be changed in the vision category of the NVDA Settings dialog.

Visual Highlight

Visual Highlight can help to identify the system focus, navigator object and browse mode positions. These positions are highlighted with a coloured rectangle outline.

Solid blue highlights a combined navigator object and system focus location (e.g. because the navigator object follows the system focus).

Dashed blue highlights just the system focus object.

Solid pink highlights just the navigator object.

Solid yellow highlights the virtual caret used in browse mode (where there is no physical caret such as in web browsers).

When Visual Highlight is enabled in the vision category of the NVDA Settings dialog, you can change whether or not to highlight the focus, navigator object or browse mode caret.

Screen Curtain

As a blind or vision impaired user, it is often not possible or necessary to see the contents of the screen. Furthermore, it might be hard to ensure that there isn't someone looking over your shoulder. For this situation, NVDA contains a feature called "Screen Curtain" which can be enabled to make the screen black.

You can enable the Screen Curtain in the vision category of the NVDA Settings dialog.

Name Key Description Toggles the state of the screen curtain NVDA+control+escape Enable to make the screen black or disable to show the contents of the screen. Pressed once, screen curtain is enabled until you restart NVDA. Pressed twice, screen curtain is enabled until you disable it.

When the Screen Curtain is active some tasks directly based on what appears on the screen such as performing OCR or taking a screenshot cannot be achieved.

Due to a change in the Windows Magnification API, Screen Curtain had to be updated to support the newest versions of Windows. Use NVDA 2021.2 to activate Screen Curtain with Windows 10 21H2 (10.0.19044) or later. For security purposes, when using a new version of Windows, get visual confirmation that the Screen Curtain makes the screen entirely black.

Please note that while Windows Magnifier is running and inverted screen colors are being used, the screen curtain cannot be enabled.

Content Recognition

When authors don't provide sufficient information for a screen reader user to determine the content of something, various tools can be used to attempt to recognize the content from an image. NVDA supports the optical character recognition (OCR) functionality built into Windows 10 and later to recognize text from images. Additional content recognizers can be provided in NVDA add-ons.

When you use a content recognition command, NVDA recognizes content from the current navigator object. By default, the navigator object follows the system focus or browse mode cursor, so you can usually just move the focus or browse mode cursor where desired. For example, if you move the browse mode cursor to a graphic, recognition will recognize content from the graphic by default. However, you may wish to use object navigation directly to, for example, recognize the content of an entire application window.

Once recognition is complete, the result will be presented in a document similar to browse mode, allowing you to read the information with cursor keys, etc. Pressing enter or space will activate (normally click) the text at the cursor if possible. Pressing escape dismisses the recognition result.

Windows OCR

Windows 10 and later includes OCR for many languages. NVDA can use this to recognize text from images or inaccessible applications.

You can set the language to use for text recognition in the Windows OCR category of the NVDA Settings dialog. Additional languages can be installed by opening the Start menu, choosing Settings, selecting Time & Language -> Region & Language and then choosing Add a language.

When you want to monitor constantly changing content, such as when watching a video with subtitles, you can optionally enable automatic refresh of the recognized content. This can also be done in the Windows OCR category of the NVDA Settings dialog.

Windows OCR may be partially or fully incompatible with NVDA vision enhancements or other external visual aids. You will need to disable these aids before proceeding to a recognition.

To recognize the text in the current navigator object using Windows OCR, press NVDA+r.

Application Specific Features

NVDA provides its own extra features for some applications to make certain tasks easier or to provide access to functionality which is not otherwise accessible to screen reader users.

Microsoft Word

Automatic Column and Row Header Reading

NVDA is able to automatically announce appropriate row and column headers when navigating around tables in Microsoft Word. This requires that the Report Table row / column headers option in NVDA's Document Formatting settings, found in the NVDA Settings dialog, be turned on.

If you use UIA to access Word documents, which is default in recent versions of Word and Windows, the cells of the first row will automatically be considered as column headers; similarly, the cells of the first column will automatically be considered as row headers.

On the contrary, if you do not use UIA to access Word documents, you will have to indicate to NVDA which row or column contains the headers in any given table. After moving to the first cell in the column or row containing the headers, use one of the following commands:

Name Key Description Set column headers NVDA+shift+c Pressing this once tells NVDA this is the first header cell in the row that contains column headers, which should be automatically announced when moving between columns below this row. Pressing twice will clear the setting. Set row headers NVDA+shift+r Pressing this once tells NVDA this is the first header cell in the column that contains row headers, which should be automatically announced when moving between rows after this column. Pressing twice will clear the setting.

These settings will be stored in the document as bookmarks compatible with other screen readers such as JAWS. This means that users of other screen readers who open this document at a later date will automatically have the row and column headers already set.

Browse Mode in Microsoft Word

Similar to the web, Browse mode can be used in Microsoft Word to allow you to use features such as Quick navigation and the Elements List.

To toggle Browse mode on and off in Microsoft Word, press NVDA+space.

For further information about Browse mode and Quick Navigation, see the Browse Mode section.

The Elements List

While in Browse mode in Microsoft Word, you can access the Elements List by pressing NVDA+f7.

The Elements List can list headings, links, annotations (which includes comments and track changes) and errors (currently limited to spelling errors).

To report any comments at the current caret position, press NVDA+alt+c.

All comments for the document, along with other tracked changes, can also be listed in the NVDA Elements List when selecting Annotations as the type.

Microsoft Excel

Automatic Column and Row Header Reading

NVDA is able to automatically announce appropriate row and column headers when navigating around Excel worksheets. This firstly requires that the Report Table row / column headers option in NVDA's Document Formatting settings, found in the NVDA Settings dialog, be turned on. Secondly, NVDA needs to know which row or column contains the headers. After moving to the first cell in the column or row containing the headers, use one of the following commands:

Name Key Description Set column headers NVDA+shift+c Pressing this once tells NVDA this is the first header cell in the row that contains column headers, which should be automatically announced when moving between columns below this row. Pressing twice will clear the setting. Set row headers NVDA+shift+r Pressing this once tells NVDA this is the first header cell in the column that contains row headers, which should be automatically announced when moving between rows after this column. Pressing twice will clear the setting.

These settings will be stored in the workbook as defined name ranges compatible with other screen readers such as JAWS. This means that users of other screen readers who open this workbook at a later date will automatically have the row and column headers already set.

The Elements List

Similar to the web, NVDA has an Elements List for Microsoft Excel that allows you to list and access several different types of information.

To access the Elements List in Excel, press NVDA+f7.

The various types of information available in the Elements List are:

Charts: This lists all charts in the active worksheet. Selecting a chart and pressing enter or the Move to button focuses the chart for navigating and reading with the arrow keys.

Comments: This lists all cells in the active worksheet containing comments. The cell address along with its comments are shown for each cell. Pressing enter or the Move To button when on a listed comment will move directly to that cell.

Formulas: This lists all cells in the worksheet containing a formula. The cell address along with its formula are shown for each cell. Pressing enter or the Move To button on a listed formula will move directly to that cell.

Sheets: This lists all sheets in the workbook. Pressing f2 when on a listed sheet allows you to rename the sheet. Pressing enter or the Move To button while on the listed sheet will switch to that sheet.

Form fields: This lists all form fields in the active worksheet. For each form field, the Elements List shows the alternative text of the field along with the addresses of the cells it covers. Selecting a form field and pressing enter or the Move to button moves to that field in browse mode.

To report any notes for the currently focused cell, press NVDA+alt+c. In Microsoft 2016, 365 and newer, the classic comments in Microsoft Excel have been renamed to "notes".

All notes for the worksheet can also be listed in the NVDA Elements List after pressing NVDA+f7.

NVDA can also display a specific dialog for adding or editing a certain note. NVDA overrides the native MS Excel notes editing region due to accessibility constraints, but the key stroke for displaying the dialog is inherited from MS Excel and therefore works also without NVDA running.

To add or edit a certain note, in a focused cell, press shift+f2.

This key stroke does not appear and cannot be changed in NVDA's input gesture dialog.

Note: it is possible to open the note editing region in MS Excel also from the context menu of any cell of the work sheet. However, this will open the inaccessible note editing region and not the NVDA specific note editing dialog.

In Microsoft Office 2016, 365 and newer, a new style comment dialog has been added. This dialog is accessible and provides more features such as replying to comments, etc. It can also be opened from the context menu of a certain cell. The comments added to the cells via the new style comment dialog are not related to "notes".

Reading Protected Cells

If a workbook has been protected, it may not be possible to move focus to particular cells that have been locked for editing.

To allow moving to locked cells, switch to Browse Mode by pressing NVDA+space, and then use standard Excel movement commands such as the arrow keys to move around all cells on the current worksheet.

Form Fields

Excel worksheets can include form fields. You can access these using the Elements List or the f and shift+f form field single letter navigation keys. Once you move to a form field in browse mode, you can press enter or space to either activate it or switch to focus mode so you can interact with it, depending on the control. For further information about Browse mode and single letter navigation, see the Browse Mode section.

Microsoft PowerPoint

Name Key Description Toggle speaker notes reading control+shift+s When in a running slide show, this command will toggle between the speaker notes for the slide and the content for the slide. This only affects what NVDA reads, not what is displayed on screen.

foobar2000

Name Key Description Report remaining time control+shift+r Reports the remaining time of the currently playing track, if any. Report elapsed time control+shift+e Reports the elapsed time of the currently playing track, if any. Report track length control+shift+t Reports the length of the currently playing track, if any.

Note: The above shortcuts work only with the default formatting string for foobar's status line.

Miranda IM

Name Key Description Report recent message NVDA+control+1-4 Reports one of the recent messages, depending on the number pressed; e.g. NVDA+control+2 reads the second most recent message.

Poedit

NVDA offers enhanced support for Poedit 3.4 or newer.

Name Key Description Report notes for translators control+shift+a Reports any notes for translators. If pressed twice, presents the notes in browse mode Report Comment control+shift+c Reports any comment in the comments window. If pressed twice, presents the comment in browse mode Report Old Source Text control+shift+o Reports the old source text, if any. If pressed twice, presents the text in browse mode Report Translation Warning control+shift+w Reports a translation warning, if any. If pressed twice, presents the warning in browse mode

Kindle for PC

NVDA supports reading and navigating books in Amazon Kindle for PC. This functionality is only available in Kindle books designated with "Screen Reader: Supported" which you can check on the details page for the book.

Browse mode is used to read books. It is enabled automatically when you open a book or focus the book area. The page will be turned automatically as appropriate when you move the cursor or use the say all command.

You can manually turn to the next page with the pageDown key and turn to the previous page with the pageUp key.

Single letter navigation is supported for links and graphics, but only within the current page. Navigating by link also includes footnotes.

NVDA provides early support for reading and interactive navigation of mathematical content for books with accessible math. Please see the Reading Mathematical Content section for further information.

Text Selection

Kindle allows you to perform various functions on selected text, including obtaining a dictionary definition, adding notes and highlights, copying the text to the clipboard and searching the web. To do this, first select text as you normally would in browse mode; e.g. by using shift and the cursor keys.

Once you have selected text, press the applications key or shift+f10 to show the available options for working with the selection.

If you do this with no text selected, options will be shown for the word at the cursor.

User Notes

You can add a note regarding a word or passage of text. To do this, first select the relevant text and access the selection options as described above. Then, choose Add Note.

When reading in browse mode, NVDA refers to these notes as comments.

To view, edit or delete a note:

Move the cursor to the text containing the note.

Access the options for the selection as described above.

Choose Edit Note.

Azardi

When in the table view of added books:

Name Key Description Enter enter Opens the selected book. Context menu applications Opens the context menu for the selected book.

Windows Console

NVDA provides support for the Windows command console used by Command Prompt, PowerShell, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The console window is of fixed size, typically much smaller than the buffer that holds the output. As new text is written, the content scroll upwards and previous text is no longer visible. On Windows versions before Windows 11 22H2, text in the console that is not visibly displayed in the window is not accessible with NVDA's text review commands. Therefore, it is necessary to scroll the console window to read earlier text. In newer versions of the console and in Windows Terminal, it is possible to review the entire text buffer freely without the need to scroll the window.

The following built-in Windows Console keyboard shortcuts may be useful when reviewing text with NVDA in older versions of Windows Console:

Name Key Description Scroll up control+upArrow Scrolls the console window up, so earlier text can be read. Scroll down control+downArrow Scrolls the console window down, so later text can be read. Scroll to start control+home Scrolls the console window to the beginning of the buffer. Scroll to end control+end Scrolls the console window to the end of the buffer.

Configuring NVDA

Most configuration can be performed using dialog boxes accessed through the Preferences sub-menu of the NVDA menu. Many of these settings can be found in the multi-page NVDA Settings dialog. In all dialog boxes, press the OK button to accept any changes you have made. To cancel any changes, pres