Hello Catherine,
I just bought my first iMac two weeks ago. You sound remarkably like me in
terms of your computer usage. My experience thus far has been:
VO is quite a sophisticated little screen reader, but it is quite a
different animal from JAWS. Reading, I mean really reading the VO online
manual is a must along with alot of hands-on experimenting as you read.
Fortunately, there is alot of help available including the keyboard help
mode and other built-in VO help.
As far as word processing, I've just messed around with the built-in
TextEdit program a bit to get familiar with reading and manipulating text,
but I do know that font and format info is easily available through VO.
Spreadsheets: I'll be very interested in any response you get on this one
from more experienced Mac users as I use Excel heavily on the PC also, but
haven't got down to business with them yet on the iMac.
Scanning also is an area I use on the PC, but haven't checked into yet on
the Mac. Although, I'm fairly sure there's good access to scanning in the
Mac world with VO.
Sound editting - yes! the built in GarageBand has quite a learning curve but
allows good editting capabilities. There is also a number of other good,
perhaps more easily learned audio editors as well.
What I've done is set up the iMac next to my PC, and with the PC, I read the
manuals and then experiment with the info on the iMac. I'm transitioning
slowly because I can't afford to go cold turkey off the PC - I don't have
the time it would take. Instead, I bought the iMac with the idea of taking
my time and slowly getting familiar with its basic functioning without the
pressure of having to get up to speed right away.
I suggest you read the VO getting started guide a bit before getting your
Mac. The following link is a good jumping off point
www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/
Read through that page, then follow the downloads link
www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/downloads.html
in that page you'll find a link to the VoiceOver getting started guide along
with links to charts of VO's keyboard command set.
Good luck! I am not sorry I bought a Mac, but I feel like a fish out of
water sometimes, though I'm learning new stuff on it everyday. I felt the
same way when I got my first iPhone though, and now I'm very happy and
productive with it - I feel sure the same will happen with the iMac.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Catherine Turner" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 4:48 AM
Subject: Considering Mac, questions about Voiceover/access
Hi all,
I don't have a Mac at the moment but am considering getting one and
have some questions about Voiceover and general Mac access which I
wonder if people could help me with?
1. With word processing, is VO able to give font/formatting information?
2. I use spreadsheets a fair bit and databases a little. I currently
use Excel with JAWS and quite often monitor certain cells so I can at
a keystroke find out what's in them. Does anyone here do anything
similar on Mac? How configurable is VO when working in spreadsheets
e.g. is there a keystroke for reading a column total and can you set
which row the total is in either in VO or the spreadsheet program?
3. Scanning/OCR - what are people using for this? How do you find it
and what sort of things do you scan?
4. Sound editing and MIDI - I do a fair bit of sound editing in wave
format, currently in Goldwave. I haven't started doing any MIDI yet
but hope to in the future. So I don't know much about the MIDI but am
just wondering if anyone is doing any Mac and what you use, how you're
finding it.
If anyone has any comments/feedback on the above questions that'd be
great. Or if anyone here has switched from Windows to Mac and has any
other observations I'd be interested in hearing them.
Thanks,
Catherine
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