Low-Cost Screen Readers
by the Access Technology Team
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From the Editor: In the following article the International Braille
and Technology Center Access Technology Team reviews four free or low-cost
screen readers: Thunder, NVDA, System Access, and WebAnywhere. This is what
they say:
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Thunder
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Thunder is a free screen-access program as long as its use is
personal. If Thunder is being used in a work setting, the company is asked
to contact Screenreader.net CIC to discuss pricing. Thunder can be
downloaded from <www.screenreader.net> and installed on any computer
running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. Windows 98, ME, and earlier versions
are not compatible with Thunder. A pro version is available for a fee that
runs from a thumb drive.
Thunder is compatible with the following programs: Outlook Express,
Microsoft Word, WordPad, Notepad, MS Calculator, MS Excel, Nod32 AntiVirus,
Listen Again radio, and MS Sound Recorder. When you download Thunder, an
additional program called WebbIE is automatically downloaded and installed
with Thunder for browsing the Internet.
Thunder is controlled by standard Windows commands, and there are
special commands for controlling Thunder. Its greatest limitation is Web
browsing. The only way to navigate the Web is by using WebbIE. It is
important to read the hot keys list at <www.screenreader.net> because there
are several special commands for Web browsing. When filling out a form on
the Web, you must press Enter before typing in the form field.
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NVDA
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The next screen reader is NVDA, which stands for NonVisual Desktop
Access. It is free and can be downloaded by visiting <http://www.nvda-
project.org>. This is experimental software and may contain bugs. We find
it very responsive and easy to use. NVDA will run on Windows XP and Windows
Vista. NVDA supports both SAPI 4 and 5 voices, Audiologic, Display, and
Silence; it comes with eSpeak as the default speech synthesizer. It can be
installed to a PC, or the files can be placed on a CD or USB thumb drive
for portable use. If the installer is downloaded to a PC, voiced
instructions will guide the user through the installation. If the program
is placed on a USB thumb drive, the user will need to start the program
manually.
NVDA supports MS Word 2003, Firefox, Thunderbird, Internet Explorer,
Outlook Express, MS Excel 2003, IBM Lotus Symphony, and many other
programs. It is worth being cautious about using these screen-access
software packages outside of their stated scope. For example, NVDA
performed less than desirably with Microsoft Outlook 2003 (as opposed to
Outlook Express). While it was possible to read the Inbox message list and
read messages, a number of areas caused NVDA to stop responding. When
composing a new message, we could not read the auto-complete options for an
email address. Additionally, when reviewing the To, Cc, and Bcc fields, we
found the addresses unreadable. The address book, which opens when Outlook
prompts the user to confirm an address, did not read at all. Our system
also stopped responding when we reached the message edit area of the new
message form. We could enter text, but NVDA did not allow us to review or
edit it. The Outlook calendar and contacts folders were not read at all. A
blind user has no way of reviewing this information in the standard views.
There is currently no support for Microsoft Office 2007. When you are
in an edit field while browsing the Internet, Enter or the space bar must
be pressed before filling in the form or choosing a radio button. We
recommend that Firefox be used to browse the Web; however, we have used
Internet Explorer successfully. When you are going to a Web page that needs
to refresh automatically, Firefox will yield better results. When
navigating the Web, the user can move to forms, tables, headings, lists,
and links by pressing a single key. NVDA has built-in keyboard help. When
NVDA is installed on the computer, start-up time is very fast. User
settings can be changed and saved within the Preference menu of the
program. Voice settings, mouse settings, speech synthesizer, mouse, and
many other options are available from this menu.
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System Access
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Another screen-access software package is System Access. This low-
cost screen reader is available from <http://www.serotek.com>. It can be
purchased outright; alternatively, the user can get a monthly subscription.
Prices vary depending on the package you choose. Contact Serotek for
current pricing information or visit <http://www.serotek.com/cas.html>.
The AIR Foundation and Serotek now also offer System Access to Go,
which gives free screen access using the Website <www.satogo.com>.
System Access by default comes with Dectalk voices. For an additional
fee two Real Speak voices can be downloaded and installed. This program
runs on Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. System Access
supports the following applications: Notepad, WordPad, Outlook Express,
Email Center on a Vista machine, Excel, PowerPoint, Firefox, Internet
Explorer, Microsoft Office 2007, Skype, and many other programs. System
Access is easy to use because it uses many standard Windows commands.
Moreover, many screen-reader commands are the same as those in other screen
readers on the market today. When using Internet Explorer, you can get a
links list, tab to move by link, use first letter navigation to move to
headings, tables, lists, and many other elements as well. In Internet
Explorer, if a Webpage requires a lot of refreshing, this program may not
always work. If you are a subscriber to the System Access mobile network,
the page can be opened by the browser. With a System Access U3 USB thumb
drive, you can walk up to a computer, plug in the drive, and have System
Access begin talking. If users have System Access on a computer at home or
the office and have enabled remote access, they can use that computer from
any machine as if they were sitting at it. With System Access the user can
also remote-control another user's computer if that person accepts a
request from the other machine.
System Access provides access to the Microsoft Excel interface. The
user can input and manipulate data and formulas and interact with the menus
and toolbars. The user can also create a chart and, depending on the type,
read the data it contains. A dialog box, accessed by pressing the System
Access modifier key and F7, displays list boxes for all cells containing
data, cells containing links, totals cells (those containing totals derived
from a formula), and the worksheets contained in the Excel workbook.
Selecting one of the totals cells and pressing the space bar toggles the
automatic reading of that cell if the data it contains changes.
Access to the Microsoft Word word processor is also available with
System Access. Menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes are usable. When you move
by character or word, formatting details such as bold or italic are spoken
in a different voice after the word or character is read. However, elements
such as heading levels are not spoken. The spell check is accessible, and
System Access speaks the misspelled word and the recommended replacement.
System Access also supports the Alva Braille Controller 640 as a Braille
display; no other Braille support is documented.
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Web Anywhere
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Web Anywhere (WA) is not a screen reader in the traditional sense of
the word. It does provide audio output of screen contents but is restricted
to the Web browser solely. The Web Anywhere site was developed by the
Computer Science Department of the University of Washington and can be
accessed at <wa.cs.washington.edu>. When this page is launched, your
computer should begin reading Web Anywhere's start page. This page
describes the Web Anywhere system and provides a list of keystrokes that
can be used with Web Anywhere.
In a basic sense Web browsing can be achieved with Web Anywhere in a
traditional way. Users can arrow around the page and tab and shift tab
between the links. Above the page content is a box for typing in the URL
that you would like Web Anywhere to navigate to. WA loads your desired page
into the browser window that contains Web Anywhere, which is evident if you
examine the window with a screen reader like JAWS. However, with all other
screen readers shut down, you have access to only the part of the Web
browser where Web Anywhere and your desired page are located. You will not
be able to use any third-party applications while using WA.
In its current form Web Anywhere is an alpha release. It offers basic
Web browsing that includes navigation by heading, link, and input control.
There are also commands to read from the current cursor position, read from
the top, and move to the next and previous form control, regardless of what
type of control it is. WA currently lacks a traditional table-reading mode
but does offer ways to move through a table by row and by cell. It is
difficult to understand how the table is formatted because you cannot
easily navigate to cells and multiple rows. Web Anywhere also does not
provide ways to list links, controls, or other elements as you can in more
powerful screen readers.
Web Anywhere is an alpha project. It is available free of charge from
<wa.cs.washington.edu>. Since it is a Web-based application, you will
always have the latest version whenever you launch the site.
We have written this article to make users aware of free and low-cost
screen readers. System Access is the most powerful of the screen readers we
have discussed. JAWS, Hal, and Window-Eyes allow the user to write JAWS and
Hal scripts or Window-Eyes scripts or set files to customize programs to
work better. If a person wants to have basic use of the computer, the
screen-access software discussed in this article will allow this. We
believe that Thunder is the least powerful screen reader followed by NVDA,
and then System Access. Other than the limited Braille support for System
Access mentioned above, none of the screen-access software discussed in
this article has Braille support at this time. If you have further
questions, give our access technology line a call at (410) 659-9314, option
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