This video is about Narrator, the built- in screen reader in Windows 10.
The video is 6 minutes and includes a full set of subtitles.
In the video the following questions will be answered.
1. What is Narrator?
2. How do you start and stop it?
3. What keyboard shortcuts to use?
4. How good is it compared to other screen readers?
A full transcript of this video can be found below.
Start of Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome to this video.
In this video I will be exploring the screen reader that comes built into Windows 10, called Narrator.
Windows 10, like most other versions of Windows, has a suite of built in tools that enable people with a wide range of disabilities to make their PC or laptop easier to see, to hear and to use.
In Windows 8 and Windows 10 these tools are controlled centrally via the Ease of Access Centre.
I have created very detailed videos about the Ease of Access Centre in Windows 8 and Windows 10 and I will leave links to those videos below this video.
I have also created a separate video about the magnification tool that is built into Windows 10. It is called Magnifier and I will leave a link to that video as well.
Now a screen reader is a voice that informs you what is happening on screen. It is predominantly used by people with a visual impairment.
To open the screen reader, which is called Narrator, you press the Windows key and the Enter key. You will hear a voice. And I think that you can hear it as well as me.
The voice works together with a variety of shortcut keys in order to help you to control your computer and know what is going on.
You can access a list of the shortcut keys by pressing the Caps Lock key and the F1 key together when you have Narrator on.
There are about 70 shortcut keys that help you to control your computer and have a voice to guide you. And you can see that I've got some of the shortcut keys on the screen now.
The shortcut keys cover 3 main areas- basic commands, navigation commands and text and table commands.
Because the complete list is so long, you might want to only display one set of commands at a time. This is done through using the scoping drop down menu at the bottom here.
You can choose whether to display the basic commands, just the navigation commands or just the text and table commands. I think that by displaying things separately, it makes things more manageable.
Basic commands are the shortcut keys that allow you to control the voice.
For instance, to stop Narrator reading press the Control Key. And there you’ve got it there highlighted in blue on your screen. .
To increase the speaking rate of Narrator we press the caps lock and “+” key and the command is highlighted in blue on your screen.
To increase the volume of Narrator, press the “caps lock” key and the “Page Up” key and you can see that command highlighted in blue on your screen.
Navigation commands are shortcut keys that enable a user to move the focus of Narrator around the screen.
For instance to move to the next item press the “caps lock” key and the “right arrow” key and that is highlighted in blue on your screen.
To move to a linked item press the “caps lock” key and the “insert” key and you can see that command highlighted in blue on your screen.
Text and table commands are shortcut keys that enable a user to use Narrator to read text and tables.
For instance, to read a document, press the “caps lock key” and the “h” key and you can see that highlighted in blue on your screen.
To read a page, press the “caps lock” key and the “control key” and the “u” key and you can see that highlighted in blue on your screen.
To read the current row in a column, press the “caps lock” key and the F8 key and you can see that highlighted in blue on your screen.
To exit Narrator, we press the “caps lock” key and the “escape” key.
And that's my quick tour of Windows Narrator.
As screen readers go, this one which is built into Windows is pretty limited and poor. It compares very badly to the screen reader that is built into Apple Macs.
Other, better screen readers are available. Some are free to download, some are very sophisticated and cost lots of money.
Thanks for watching this video. If you want to leave a comment, ask me a question or join in with the discussion then do so below.
End of Transcript
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