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Using Windows Narrator (screenreader) for basic tests

But do screenreaders read Word equations directly?

Accessible equations in Word are still relatively new - Microsoft have done the necessary work but some of the screenreader vendors/publishers have not yet implemented the interface. For screenreader users in this situation one of the following should be accessible:

Warning!

Learning to use a screenreader properly is well outside the scope of this workshop but having a basic understanding of how a screenreader can interact with a document is helpful. We will use a restricted mode of the built-in Windows screenreader Narrator which can read Word equations. Please also note that students will certainly have a screenreader more suited to education and employment than Narrator and that no student should be asked to change or acquire a skillset in a new screenreader without very good reason and plenty of advance notice.

Please also note that these are instructions are not intended to teach you how to use a screenreader and they are not suitable for someone who usually uses a screenreader. These instructions exist solely to aid lecturers or teaching fellows in understanding how the structure of a Word document is used by a screenreader.

What to do to have a go

  1. Open the Word document you want to explore and click your cursor at the start.
  2. Press Windows key + Ctrl + Enter to start Narrator.
    • To stop Narrator from finishing the current output press Ctrl
    • To stop Narrator completely press Windows key + Ctrl + Enter
  3. Narrator has a mode which is mainly for scanning through and reading. We are only going to use this mode as it is easy for an untrained user to use with a Word document. You cannot edit the document when in this mode.
  4. Try not to use the mouse! Once in scan mode use the below commands to explore the document. Try to move through the document in different ways to ‘scan’ it. Try to read the equations.
Key press What will happen? What can I add?
Enter Do action (in context) Add shift for a secondary action
Down/Up Read next/last item Add control for lines
Right/Left Read next/last character Add control for words
Home/End Move to and read first/last character of line Add control for first/last line of text
P Read next paragraph Add shift for previous paragraph
H Jump to next heading Add shift for previous heading
n in {1,..,9} Jump to next heading at level n Add shift for previous heading at level n
I Jump to next item Add shift for previous item
K Jump to next link Add shift for previous link
T Jump to next table Add shift for previous table

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