NVDA: How to Buy Voices and Install Them

NVDA is a free screen reader for Windows 7, 8 and 10. It stands for Non Visual Desktop Access. In this video I demonstrate how you buy additional voices for NVDA and then install them.

This video is 15 minutes long and it includes a full set of subtitles.

By watching this video, you will learn the five steps that are involved in buying and installing these voices. And the steps are; step one downloading a voice, step 2 downloading software to make the voice work, step 3 buying a licence, step 4 creating an account and step 5 installing the voices.

You can find a full transcript of the video below.

Start of Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video.

In this video, I will take you through the process involved in buying some good quality human sounding voices and installing them to work with the screen reader NVDA.

Now this video is one of many videos that I have created about NVDA and the links to my other videos can be found in the description box below this video.

NVDA is a free screen reader. A screen reader is a piece of software that gives a computer a voice so that it narrates what is happening on the screen.

Screen readers are predominantly used by people who are blind or visually impaired. The voice enables them to use their computer more independently because they are not having to look at the screen.

There are 5 steps involved in buying a good quality human sounding voice for NVDA.

It comes preinstalled with some robotic sounding voices but the voices that I will be showing you how to install today are much more natural sounding.

For those of you that use personal assistants on your phones or tablets, these are voices that sound like Siri, Google Now or Cortana.

And so the five steps are; step one downloading a voice, step 2 downloading software to make the voice work, step 3 buying a licence, step 4 creating an account and step 5 installing the voices.

So let's start with step 1

The page that you need to go to to download a voice is here.

From here, you have a few choices.

At the top of the page you can use the search filter in order to narrow your choice down to a specific language or variant.

For instance, if I wanted to search for a British voice I would select British English from the language drop down box and a selection would appear below and here is the selection here.

Alternatively, you look at the long list and download  individual voices from this. And here is the list. Now I think that there is something like 66 voices on this list covering most languages.

Your third option for downloading a voice is at the bottom of this page you can select a “Voice bundle” and these collection of voices that you can download together.

So once you have decided which approach suits you, and which voice you want to download click on the download link and check your download file on your computer to make sure that it has downloaded properly.

and if I can just show you these two Vocaliser voices that I have downloaded so this is the voice bundle all of the English ones and this is "Daniel" which is a British UK voice.

So your files should look like that they will probably start with the word "Vocaliser." And is important you remember where you downloaded that file and what the name of the file is as well.

Step 2.

Download a small piece of software which enables the voices to work in NVDA.

At the top of the download page you've got a section and a blue driver and it says “Download Driver.” This is a very small but necessary piece of software which will only take a minute to download on most broadband connections.

So if you click on there and then save it. Again if you go into my downloads you can see that I've got it here- its labelled as Vocalizer Expressive Driver.

So that means that the file has download successfully. Make a note of the files name because you will need it a bit later.

Step 3 Buy a licence

You can download those voices that we have just downloaded but without a licence they will not work or they will not work indefinitely- they may let you work they may let you use them for a few weeks as a trial and then they will run out and in order to use them permanently, you do need to buy a licence.

Now, if you live in the UK, you need to go straight to this page here which is Comproom.co.uk and this is the vocaliser expressive voices for NVDA page and you can see here that it will cost you £108 or £90 if you don't pay any VAT.

However, if you live elsewhere then if you go to the buy page on the Vocaliser NVDA website you can see all the different places in all the different countries where you can buy the voice from.

again we have just gone to the Computer Room Services page in the UK or use the drop down box to go to the specific country that you are living in.

Now I had difficulty finding Vocaliser voices. for instance when I clicked on this link it took me to Computer Room I then had difficulty finding the Vocaliser voices page and so all I did was a did a Google search I just did a Google search for "Comp Room UK vocaliser NVDA". And you can see that the top result is the page I need on the CompRoom website.

Now once you have found the voices then use the site’s checkout process to buy the licence.

So for instance on CompRoom's website I would just click on "Add to Basket"

Now, once you have  paid for the licence, it will be emailed to you.

I am not actually going to take you through this process because I've already got a licence for these voices but it is just like, buying these voices is just like buying anything else on eBay or on Amazon. It takes you through a similar check out process.

So once you have bought a voice, sorry once you have bought a licence step four is to create an account.

So if you go to the homepage of the Vocaliser NVDA page here then you've got the sign up and you've got the log in pages.

and so what we are going to do is to step 4 to create an account we are going to go for the sign up.

And you need to put in first name and your last name and your country of residence and your email address  and then your password and then you just do the sign up button there.

And again I have already signed up and so I am not going to take you through that but this sign up process is very familiar to lots of websites out there.

Now, the reason to sign up to create an account with the company is so that your license for your voices can be validated and also managed and they don't use them for any other purposes and so don't worry about that.

Step 5 Adding the Voices into NVDA

To add the voices into NVDA and to test that they work of course, you need to start up NVDA.

Once it has started go into the preferences, sorry the Tool menu and then go to manage add ons.

The first thing to do is to install the driver, the small piece of software that you downloaded after the voices.
Now you can see here that I have already got the voices and the driver already installed but I will take you through the process.

So to install the driver, press the install button.OK, I am really sorry about that everyone its coming up to Christmas and so I have just had to answer the door for a parcel delivery.

So, let's go back to NVDA we are in the add on manager and we are going to install the driver software. So press the install button and then here we go find the driver file that you downloaded from earlier and just double click on it and this will install it.

And then you will get this warning here about do you trust the install. Press Yes. Now you won't see this next prompt I've got because you haven't installed this driver.

and there you go, in a couple of seconds it has installed itself.

Now that we have installed the driver the next thing to do is to install the voices. So press the install button again and now you want to go to the voice that you downloaded. As I said I have downloaded a single voice, Daniel which is over here or I've also downloaded a voice bundle of all the English voices which is where I have highlighted at the moment.

So again just click on either the voice that you want to install and then you will get the warning again asking you if you are sure that this is safe. Click on "Yes" and because mine is already installed it is asking me if I want to update it, but you will not get that warning.

Now once those have installed press "Close" and then go back into your settings, then what you want to do is go into synthesiser and make sure that in the synthesiser drop down box you've got the Nuanced Vocaliser option selected.

And then to make sure that voices work with NVDA, exit NVDA and then when you need to use it again, you can re start it and those voices will then work.

Now remeber I have created other videos about NVDA and the links to these in the description below the video.

If you have any questions or comments or you just want to join in with the discussion, then also do so below the video.

Thanks for watching.

End of transcript. 

NVDA: Do You Like the Voices?

This video demonstrates the voices that are available to use in NVDA- the free screen reader.

This video is nearly 14 minutes long and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video, I will demonstrate dozens of different voices that you can use in NVDA via the Microsoft Speech or the E-speak bank of voices. There is quite a selection.Hello everyone and welcome to this video.

Below is a full transcript of the video.

Start of transcript

In this video I am going to demonstrate the different voices that you can use for NVDA.

NVDA is a free screen reader. A screen reader is a piece of software that gives a computer a voice so that it narrates what is happening. NVDA stands for Non Visual Desktop Access.

Screen readers are predominantly used by people who are blind or visually impaired. The voice enables them to use their computer more independently.

NVDA is a great screen reader that is very powerful. It comes with loads of pre installed voices, the question is, do you like them?

If we open up the NVDA settings menu and go into the Preferences menu then go to the Synthesizer. This gives us access to two banks of voices; Microsoft Speech and espeak.

Microsoft Speech is a bank of voices that are pre- installed into every version of Windows.  E-speak voices are voices that are pre-installed into software such as NVDA.

So let’s first of all have a look at espeak. Click OK.

I am now going to go to the voices section, preferences, then voice settings

A box at the top is “voice”, which allows us to choose what language and dialect we want to use. So, using English as an example there are 7 different types of English available and I will demonstrate each of these.

First of all we have got English.

Next, we've got Scottish.

Then we've got English North.

Next we've got English RP which I think is received pronunciation.

Then we've got English WMids which I think is West Midlands.

Next, we've got English- US

And finally, we've got West Indies English.

So as I said that is the 7 different types of English that are available on E-speak.

Now I am just going to go back and do the default English version.

Once you have chosen the voice you can choose the variant.

The box below voice is labelled Variant and so once you have selected the language, you can now select between a range of male and female voices to talk in.

Now when I counted these there were there were 49 choices!

There are too many to demonstrate them all. all of them but let’s have a look at a few; female 1, female 2.

And now let's go to a voice named Rob.

Let's try Andy.

Next let's try a couple of female voices, firstly Linda.

And now let's try Jacky.

Next, let's try Michael.

Finally let's try Annie.

So there are some of the main voices that you can try.

There are also quite a few humorous voices as well, such as; whisper, Mr Serious, anxious Andy and then female whisper.

That's my demonstration of the E-speak voices, now let’s look at the Microsoft Voices.

So we are going to go back into the settings, preferences, synthesizer. In then in the synthesiser box, select Microsoft Speech. Click on OK.

Preferences, voice settings. In the voice box you can see that we just have 4 choices of voices; Hazel which is British English, Heera which is Indian English, David which is US English and Zira which is also US English. And so let's listen to them.

So there is a lot less choice with Microsoft but perhaps the quality is better?

How do these compare to voices that you have to pay for. Voices like “Daniel” which is the voice of Siri on iPads in the UK?

Let’s demonstrate Daniel and another high quality female voice, such as Serena.

If you like these voices enough, they can be bought for about £20 each.

so I have just turned NVDA off and I have just gone to this website here which is from a company called Nuance who are very very big in the computer voice world and they are the manufacturer's of Dragon Dictate for instance.

So I am going to come here and do an English British voice and then I am going to select a male and then I am going to come here to Daniel and I am just going to get Daniel to read the text that I have placed in the box.

And now I am going to choose a female voice and I am going to keep it English British and I am going to go to Serena.

So as I said earlier, these voices can bought for about £20 each.

But do you notice a difference in these voices and the quality in them to the voices that I was testing as par tof the NVDA?

Now in my next video, I will show you how to buy one of these voices and then how to install it so that it works in NVDA.

Thanks for watching. If you have any questions, or want to join in the discussion then please do so in the space below this video.

End of transcript

NVDA: Downloading & Installing (An Easy Step By Step Guide)

NVDA is a free screen reader for Windows 7, 8 and 10. It stands for Non Visual Desktop Access.

This video is 9 minutes long and it includes a full set of subtitles.

By watching this video, you will learn:

1. What NVDA stands for
2. If it really is free.
3. How to download and install NVDA in about 5 minutes.

A full transcript of the video can be read below;

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video.

 In this video I am going to be concentrating on NVDA.

 NVDA is a free screen reader and in this video I am going to be showing you how to download and install it.

Screen readers add a voice to a computer so that a person with a visual impairment can more easily use their computer independently.

NVDA stands for Non Visual Desktop Access.

It's a screen reader that can be installed on Windows PCs and laptops.

Although it is free, as a charity, NVDA do encourage you to make a donation if you download it.

After all, other screen readers (such as Jaws, Hal and Window Eyes) do cost hundreds of pounds each.

So let’s open up our browser and go to nvaccess.org/download and you can see that my browser is open at the page here.

To do this, I am using a Windows 10 laptop with Firefox to do this.

This page shows you lots of options if you want to donate money to the project.

You've got Paypal there, you've got monthly donations and at the bottom you've got bank transfers.

However, if you don’t want to make a donation, just click on this link near the bottom of the page “skip donation this time”.

A box appears on your screen.

Select “Save File” and the download begins.

At the bottom of my screen I have a progress bar letting me know how the download is progressing.

Mine only took about 10 seconds and then for me to access that downloaded file, I then come up here and I just select the NVDA.exe file.

And so I click on this.

A new box will appear on your screen.

and I am going to select run and some music starts to play and then a voice informs you that the licence is displayed.

Read the licence and then tick/ check on the  “I agree” box. 

Now you need to choose between the following options;  install NVDA on this computer, create portable copy, continue running and, of course if you don't suddenly want to it, there is exit as well. 

For simplicity sake, I would select “install NVDA on this computer”.

Now when you are doing this you will get the voice on NVDA talking to you, as you can hear, it is to me.

If at any point you just want that voice to stop press the control button on your keypad and the voice will stop as you go through this.

Now another box appears on screen, giving us more choices.

When NVDA is installed, it will automatically start at the Windows log on screen. If you wanted to do that then leave that box ticked.

If you don’t want NVDA to start until after you have logged on, then clear that box. 

When NVDA is installed, it will automatically create a desktop icon and a shortcut key to get access to the program.

If you it to do that, then leave the box next to it checked 

If you don’t want it to do that, clear the box.

I do want it to do that.

Click on the continue button.

Another box appears on your screen. Select yes to install NVDA.

After a couple of  seconds you'll have another another box that appears and it tells you that you have successfully installed NVDA.

And when we click OK, we're starting NVDA.

And you can see that it is starting to read the webpage that I am on.

And that's it. On an earlier installation that I did of NVDA onto this computer, it gave me further options which were all about selecting a modifier key to use with NVDA.
Another box appears asking you to select an NVDA modifier key.

And a modifier key is a key on the keyboard that you press (in conjunction with other keys) in order to control NVDA.

But it doesn't seem to have given me that option this time.

So, hopefully you would have installed NVDA successfully.

Thank you for watching this video.

If you are struggling to download or install NVDA correctly, please let me know.

If you want to ask me other questions , or join in with the discussion then leave a comment below this video. I will get back to you.

End of video transcript.

ChromeVox- An Overview of the Settings Menu

In this video I show you the settings menu for ChromeVox.

By watching this video, you will learn;

How to change the language

How to change the Braille Settings

How to personalise most of the keyboard shortcuts so that you can get ChromeVox working better for you.

I welcome any questions or comments that you have about ChromeVox!

A full transcript of the video can be read below

Start of video transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

Chromevox is a free screen reader that can be used in Google Chrome or when using a Chromebook or a Chromebox.

In this video I will take you through some of the changes that you can make to ChromeVox.

Firstly, make sure that ChromeVox is on. Press Control + Alt + Z.

To open up the settings page, press Shift + Search + O, then O.

I will just take you one by through the different options with a brief description where necessary.

To navigate to the next option press TAB. To go to the previous option, press Shift + TAB.

To select or unselect an item, press the Spacebar.

You can

enable verbose descriptions.

place the cursor between characters when editing text

use the mouse to change the focus

and enhance specific sites.

change the current voice. Here there are dozens of options in many different languages.

Braille.

A braille display can be connected to your device and Chromevox will show you the text that is on the braille display.

You can change the format of braille between 6 dot and 8 dot and then also change the language.

Keyboard Shortcuts.

The first option here is the layout of the keyboard. In the drop down box you can select between classic keymap, flat keymap and experimental keymap. A keymap is a set of keyboard shortcuts, but I am not sure how these keymaps are any different from each other.

Underneath the keymaps options is a list of keyboard shortcuts that control ChromeVox that you can change. This enables you to personalise the shortcuts. I would imagine that this would be a very handy feature to change if you are used to using another screen reader such as Jaws or NVDA in order to make the shortcuts the same.

In order to keep this video brief, I will just look at the different sections of keyboard shortcuts that you can change.

The first section is Modifier Keys. These are the keys that perform the fundamentals with ChromeVox. For instance the standard modifier key for ChromeVox is Shift + Search but you can change it.

There are several shortcuts that you can change in order to control the speech including increasing it's rate or decreasing its pitch.

There are numerous navigation shortcuts that you can modify for the navigation commands for ChromeVox, such as moving through text. You can set the shortcut to get ChromeVox to read the next word or the previous sentence. Or to go to the top of the page or to the bottom.

In terms of information commands you can define the shortcut that will announce the URL of the current page or to speak the current date and time.

There are shortcuts for displaying lists of headings, links and tables.

Jump commands take you to a specific location on the page- such as to the next button or the previous graphic or the previous form.

And finally are the keyboard shortcuts that you can set so that ChromeVox can read tables such as going to beginning of the table or to the beginning of the current column.

And that's it. Thanks for watching.

In the comments section below please tell me your experience of using ChromeVox. What is your favourite command? Or do you have any unanswered questions about it. Please let me know.

End of video transcript

Windows 10: How To Get an Extra Large Mouse Pointer (For Free)

In this video I will show you how to change your mouse pointer or cursor from a standard size to an extra large size for free.

The video is between 3 and 4 minutes long and has a full set of subtitles included.

In the video the following questions will be answered;
1. Can I get an extra large mouse pointer for free?
2. Can I make the changes quickly and easily?

A full transcript from the video can be read below.

Start of video transcript.


Hello and welcome to this video. In this video I am going to be showing you how you can get an extra large mouse pointer on your Windows 10 laptop or PC without downloading a thing. 

You can see in front of me I've got Windows 10 running on my laptop.

 So to start press the Windows key.  As soon as you have done that start to type "control panel".  When control panel appears on your screen then press enter. 

When the control panel appears start typing "mouse pointer".  On the left hand side of your screen click on "change how the mouse pointer looks".

On the Screen in front of you you have a box which is all about the mouse properties. 

under scheme is a drop down menu and from this menu you have lots of options for making your mouse pointer bigger.

 You can have an extra large mouse pointer or a large mouse pointer. Here is the extra large and here’s large Your mouse pointer can be black, it can be white which is also called Windows default and it can be  gold which is called Windows inverted. And you can see all of these options available on screen. 

Now I am going to choose Windows black extra large.  and to show that I have selected it, it will show in the box in the box beneath  the scheme  options.

In the Customise box are a series of options  for the shape that you want your mouse pointer to be.  Now the normal shape is just an arrow but you have got things such as an egg timer, you've got a pen you’ve got different styles of arrows and then right at the bottom  you have  a hand. 

so just use the one which you would find easiest to use and of course easiest to see and I am just going to stick with the arrow.

 Thank you for watching this video everyone. Remember if you have any comments or you know of any other good ways to  get large  mouse pointers for your laptop then please let me know in the comment section below this video.

End of video transcript.

Windows 10: Help! I've Lost My Mouse Pointer

In this video I will show you how to change a few simple settings to make sure that you will never lose your mouse pointer again.

This video is 4 minutes long and it includes a set of full subtitles.

The following questions will be answered in the video.

1. What type of person might lose track of their mouse pointer?
2. How to add a "tracking device" to your mouse pointer.

A full transcript of this video can be read below.

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video.

 In this video I am going to show you a simple trick that will mean that you will never lose your mouse pointer on your screen again. This works on Windows 10 laptops and PCs

 Now the mouse pointer is the arrow which is on the screen and shows you the position of your mouse. You can see that I am using mine now.

 Now sometimes it is very hard to always know where it is and this could be because we have lots and lots of icons on screen, it could be because sometimes the mouse is moving about so fast, or it could be that we  have a visual  impairment that makes our  mouse pointer or our screen harder to see.

To make sure that you never lose your mouse pointer again, All you need to do is go into the settings on your Windows 10 laptop or PC and activate a location finder.

 And so this is how you do it

 First of all press the Windows key and then start to type "control panel" as soon as the word control panel appears press enter.

 Now that the control panel is open start to type "mouse."

On the left hand side of your screen click or select  any of those options under Mouse.

 the mouse properties box now appears.

 And the location feature which I want to show you is under the pointer options menu so click on that.  now at the bottom of this menu is a box that says show location of pointer when I  press the ctrl key.

Now just click on the box and make sure that there is a tick in it  and then just click the apply button in the bottom right-hand corner and hopefully we've got the location finder working for us.

Now at any point when you are using your mouse and the  mouse pointer gets lost all that you need to do is press the control button on your keyboard. And as we can see here, a circle appears on screen locating your mouse.

 And that's it. Really easy. thank you for watching this video. If you have any comments please leave them in the comment section below this video.

End of video transcript.

Windows 10: How to Change your Desktop Background to a Solid Colour

This video shows how to change your desktop background on your Windows 10 PC or laptop to a solid colour.

The video is between 2 and 3 minutes long and it includes a full set of subtitles.

In the video the following questions will be answered.

1. What sort of person might benefit from making this change?
2.Can I make the changes just using keyboard shortcuts.

A full transcript of this video can be found below.

Start of video transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to this video.

In this video I am going to show you how to change the background on your Windows 10 laptop or PC from a photo or ornate pattern to a solid colour.

This is a helpful modification for many people who perhaps want to reduce the clutter on their screen.

But for those of you with a visual impairment this could be a necessary step in order to help you to access your laptop or PC more independently.

Press the Windows Key and the D key together in order to get onto your desktop.

Now press the Shift and F10 keys together.

A display menu should appear on your screen.

Now press the r key and the Personalise menu opens.

Now press the Tab key until you focus on the Background drop down box. Press the down arrow until the solid colour option is selected.

Press the Spacebar to confirm your selection.

Press the TAB key once and then use your arrow keys to select the colour that you want for your background.

Once you have chosen your colour press the Alt and F4 keys and you will taken back to your desktop.

And there you have it. A fairly simple procedure to change the background on your Windows 10 laptop or PC from a photo or ornate pattern to a solid colour.

Thanks for watching this video. If you want to join in with the discussion, please leave your comments below. How do you change your background? What is your favourite colour?

End of video transcript

Windows 10: Change the Size of Your Desktop Icons (Quickly)

This video shows how quick and easy it is to change the size of your desktop icons on a computer running Windows 10.

It is two minutes long and it includes a full set of subtitles.

In the video the following questions will be answered;

1. How can I make changes in about 30 seconds straight from the desktop?
2. What size icons can I choose between?
3. How can I make the changes using my mouse?
4. How can I make the changes using my keyboard?

A full transcript of the video can be read below.

Start of video transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to this video

 in this video I am going to show you how to Change the size of your desktop icons on your Windows 10 laptop or PC.

 with your mouse right click anywhere on a part of your desktop is empty.  a menu appears.  now click on view and you can see that another menu appears and from this menu select between large medium and small icons. 

As you select between large medium or small icons the size of the icons changes immediately.

 And there you go.  A really simple way to change the size of your desktop icons in 20 seconds or less.

If you want to use a few keyboard shortcuts then try this. Press the Windows keys + D to get onto the desktop.

Now press the Shift key with F10 in order to get the display menu up.

Press v (for view) and then either r (large icons), m (medium icons) or n (small icons).

 Thank you for watching this video if you have any comments please leave them in the comment section below the video.

End of video transcript.

Windows 10: The Ease of Access Centre- The Ultimate Tour

This video is 19 minutes long but it has a full set of subtitles included.

It is the Ultimate Guide to the Ease of Access Centre in Windows 10.

This video concentrates on the software in the Ease of Access Centre that will enhance the use of a Windows computer for a person with a visual impairment.

In this video, the following questions will be answered;

1. What is the Ease of Access Centre?
2. How do I start and stop the magnification tool (Magnifier)?
3. What are Magnifier's main features?
4. What are the most important keyboard shortcuts to use?
5. How do I start and stop the screen reader (Narrator)?
 6. What are Narrator's main features?
7. What are the most important keyboard shortcuts to use?
8. What do the different high contrast themes look like?
9. How do I turn high contrast on and off?

A full transcript from the video can be read below

Start of Video Transcript

Windows 10 laptop.

The Ease of Access Center is the place on a Windows PC or laptop where you can modify the accessibility settings in order to make your computer easier to see, to hear and to use.

For this video, I am going to be demonstrating the Ease of Access Center on a laptop running Windows 10 but the Ease of Access Centre was part of Windows 8 as well and I have created a video about that and you can find the link below this video.

The Ease of Access Centre is the place to go for people who have a wide range of disabilities in order to modify how their computer works. My specific concern in this video is those settings that make a computer easier to use for people who have a visual impairment.

To open the Ease of Access Centre we press the Windows key and the “U” key.

So let us look at each element in the centre in turn, starting with the common tools; magnifier, narrator, on screen keyboard and high contrast.

Magnifier is a feature that makes the whole screen or parts of it bigger.

To start it you can press the Windows key and the “+” key. A magnifying glass appears on your screen like this and that shows that we have started the Magnifier.

You can make things bigger by pressing the Windows key and the “+” key and you can see there that my mouse cursor, my mouse pointer are magnifying I am zooming in and making things bigger. 

You make things smaller by pressing the Windows key and the “-” key repeatedly.

Once you have set the ideal magnification level for yourself you then have a choice between using the magnifier in one of three modes; full screen (which we have it on now), lens, docked.

In full screen mode the whole of the desktop is magnified. To select full screen mode press the Ctrl and Alt and F keys together.

The centre, the focus of the magnification is where the mouse pointer is. You can see as I move my mouse pointer around then the magnification moves with it.

To select “lens” mode,  press the Ctrl and Alt and L keys together. A rectangular lens appears on the screen. Anything within the lens is magnified and the lens follows your mouse pointer.  So, here we go, you can see there is the rectangular magnification and as I move it around,  anything that the rectangle hovers over is magnified.

To select “docked” mode,  press the Ctrl and Alt and D keys together. A rectangular strip appears at the top of your screen (and you can see it here) which is stationary and magnifies the area around your mouse pointer.

And there you have it- my quick tour of Windows magnifier.

 Now to come out of Windows magnifier we press the Windows key and the escape key.

As magnifiers go, this one which is built into Windows is pretty limited and poor. It compares very badly to the magnification tool that is built into Apple Macs.

Other, better magnifiers are available. Some are free to download, some are very sophisticated and cost lots of money.

So in the next part of my tour of the Ease of Access Centre, I will give you an overview of Narrator- windows built in screen reader.

So let’s get the ease of access centre  open by pressing the Windows key and the U key together.


 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  don't know if that voice is going to come out on this recording because I've got a headset on.

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. 

At the bottom of this box of all of the shortcut keys there is a box label scoping and in here you can choose which ones of those commands that you want up. Basic commands, navigation commands and text and table commands.

So let’s get basic commands up.

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.

To increase the speaking rate of Narrator  we press the caps lock and “+” key which is this command here you can it 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 highlighted in blue on your screen.

Navigation commands are shortcut keys that enable a user to move the focus of Narrator around the screen. And let's go down to the scoping box and get the navigation commands up.

For instance to move to the next item press the “caps lock” key and the “right arrow” key  which is highlighted in blue on your screen.

To move to a linked item  press the “caps lock” key and the “insert” key  which is there highlighted in blue  on your screen.

As I have just said you can access the full list of navigation commands by pressing the caps lock key and the F1 key and then in the scoping drop down menu select navigation commands.

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.

To read a page, press the “caps lock” key and the “control key” and the “u” key.

To read the current row in a table, press the “caps lock” key and the F8 key.

You can access the full list of text and table commands by pressing the caps lock key and the F1 key and then in the scoping drop down menu select  text and table commands and there they are in front of you.

To exit Narrator, press the “caps lock” key and the “escape” key.

And there you have it- 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.

Next on my tour I will be looking at the High Contrast feature. These are settings that use contrasting colours in order to make the screen easier to see.

Before I turn on the High Contrast setting, I want to show you the different colour schemes that are available.

To do this, click on “Set Up High Contrast”, and then near the top of the page select “Choose a high contrast theme”

There are four standard high contrast colour schemes in Windows 10 and you can see them in the High Contrast Themes section on this page.

Three of them use different colours on a black background- blue and yellow, light blue and green and  white and purple, whilst the fourth is black on a white background.

This is what they look like on the desktop, in a web browser and in Word.

Firstly the blue and yellow on black theme; this is your  desktop, in your browser and this is what it looks like  in Word.

Next let’s go to the light blue and green on black theme; so this is what it looks like on your desktop, this is what it looks like on your browser, and that’s what it looks like in Word.

Next the white and purple on black theme; so this is what your desktop looks like, just refresh this this is what your browser looks like and this is what Word looks like.

And finally the black on white theme and so here we go this is a bit of a difference. This is your desktop, this is your browser and this is your Word document.

Once you have chosen your favourite colour setting from all of these make sure that  you select it. And I am going to leave it on the high contrast white.

That means that when you turn High Contrast, it displays your selected  colour scheme. And so let’s just demonstrate that.

So I have turned the high contrast scheme off and now if I turn it on  there you go it goes immediately to black and white.

 And sorry to turn on the High Contrast scheme the shortcut keys are the left shift key, the left alt key and the print screen key  all pressed down together.

And  there you go that is my quick tour of the high contrast mode and also the end my video demonstrating the Ease of Access Centre.

Thank you for watching. If you would like to leave a comment, join the discussion or ask me a question then do so below.

Do you use other magnifiers or screen readers? If so, which ones?

And what are your favourite colour combinations for using High Contrast please let me know.

End of Video Transcript

Windows 10: How Does Magnifier Work and Is It Any Good?!

This is a video about Magnifier, the built in magnification software that is in Windows 10.

The video is 5 minutes long and includes a full set of subtitles.

In this video, the following questions will be answered.

1. What is Magnifier?
2. How do I start and stop magnifier?
3. How do I change the magnification settings on it?
4. How good is it compared to other magnification software?

A full transcript of this video can be found below.

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to this video.

In this video, I want I will give a brief demonstration of the magnification tool in Windows 10, called Magnifier.

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.

Magnifier is a feature that makes the whole screen or parts of it bigger and so it is most likely to be used by people with a visual impairment.

To start Magnifier,  you can press the Windows key and the “+” key. A magnifying glass appears on your screen like this and that shows that we have started the Magnifier.

You can make things bigger by pressing the Windows key and the “+” key and you can see there that my mouse cursor, my mouse pointer are magnifying I am zooming in and making things bigger. 

You make things smaller by pressing the Windows key and the “-” key repeatedly.

Once you have set the ideal magnification level for yourself you then have a choice between using the magnifier in one of three modes; full screen (which we have it on now), lens, docked.

In full screen mode the whole of the desktop is magnified. To select full screen mode press the Ctrl and Alt and F keys together.

The centre, the focus of the magnification is where the mouse pointer is. You can see as I move my mouse pointer around then the magnification moves with it.

To select “lens” mode,  press the Ctrl and Alt and L keys together. A rectangular lens appears on the screen. Anything within the lens is magnified and the lens follows your mouse pointer.  So, here we go, you can see there is the rectangular magnification and as I move it around,  anything that the rectangle hovers over is magnified.

To select “docked” mode,  press the Ctrl and Alt and D keys together. A rectangular strip appears at the top of your screen (and you can see it here) which is stationary and magnifies the area around your mouse pointer.

And there you have it- my quick tour of Windows magnifier.

 Now to come out of Windows magnifier we press the Windows key and the escape key.

As magnifiers go, this one which is built into Windows is pretty limited and poor. It compares very badly to the magnification tool that is built into Apple Macs.

Other, better magnifiers are available. Some are free to download, some are very sophisticated and cost lots of money.

End of Video Transcript

Windows 10: How Does Narrator Work And Is It Any Good?

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