NVDA: 2 Quick Ways to Start it in Windows 10

Hello. In this 5 minute video I will show you 2 quick ways to start the screen reader NVDA in Windows 10.

One of these ways is to use the NVDA shortcut Ctrl+Alt+N and I also show you in this video how to fix this shortcut if it doesn't work.

The video comes with a full list of subtitles but if you prefer to read from a transcript, please find a full copy below.

Start of video transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

In this video I want to demonstrate 2 quick ways to start NVDA on Windows 10.

NVDA is a free screen reader.

A screen reader is a great piece of software that gives computers, smartphones and tablets a voice in order to help people who have a visual impairment or who are blind access these devices more independently.

I have created other videos about the screen reader NVDA and I have grouped them together in a playlist which I will link to below.

The first way to quickly launch NVDA is to use the built in shortcut key or hotkey which is Control+ Alt + N.

And voila it starts immediately.

Now for some strange reason, your copy of NVDA might not start when you press this shortcut.

If this is the case, we need to quickly check something.

The strange thing is that NVDA shouldn’t be running at this point. In order to configure a shortcut key to start NVDA it needs to be turned off!

Highlight your NVDA icon.

I have pressed Windows Keys and D to get on the desktop and then the letter “n”.

Now we need to open up the “context menu” for NVDA. To do this you can either right click on your mouse or press the Shift and F10 key together in order to start it.

Once the context menu is opened, press the r key to open the property menu.

Now press the Alt and k key together.

This highlights the shortcut or hot key box.

Normally this box has Ctrl + Alt +N in it but if you have tried that shortcut and it doesn’t work, then the box is probably blank.

So just press the hotkey combination that you want to use to start NVDA.

I think that Control+ Alt + N is the most logical.

Once you have pressed the hotkey combination that you want press the enter key.

You might get another box that appears, requesting Administrator Permissions, but just press the Enter key once more and you should be done.

To double check that it works, press the hotkey that you selected and NVDA should start.

Before I show you the second way to quickly start NVDA in Windows 10, I just need to close NVDA.

I do this by pressing the insert key and the n key together to get the NVDA menu up, then I press x for exit and the I press the enter key.

NVDA closes.

Now the second way to start NVDA in Windows 10 which is nearly as fast, is to press the Windows key and then type in “NVDA” (it can be in upper or lower case) and then press enter. NVDA will start up.

There you have it. My quick and easy guide about two quick ways to start NVDA on a Windows 10 machine.

If you have any questions or difficulties after watching this video, or want to join in with the discussion please do so below.

Which is you favourite method of starting NVDA? Let me know.

Thanks for watching.

End of video transcript