Correcting Spelling Mistakes - JAWS V15 - Quick Keys - MS Word 2007

Correcting Spelling Mistakes Using Quick Keys

Normally there's a bunch of Office or Windows keystrokes that you end up knowing off by heart and F7 - the hotkey to launch the standard spell-checker in MS Word - is certainly one of that bunch. But, did you know that you can also check for spelling mistakes in your document using JAWS quick keys? Read on.

Quick Key Mode

The JAWS quick key mode in MS Word allows you to approach a Word document in the same way that you might approach a website. So, in JAWS you can do things like tap letter H to go to the next heading in a webpage, letter E to go to the next edit field, B for next button and so on. Imagine being able to do something similar but for functions more appropriate for MS Word. In this post, I'm going to cover using quick key mode to move through any misspellings in the current document:

1. Open a new Word document and type in a few lines of text, making sure to create some mistakes in the text!
2. Use CONTROL HOME to move to the top of the file.
3. Switch the JAWS quick key mode on in MS Word with INSERT Z. JAWS will echo "quick keys on".
4. With quick key mode active, use the single letter key of "M" to move focus to the first "misspelling" in the page. JAWS will read the misspelled word, echo each individual letter and then read the line of text for the word.
5. As the PC cursor physically moves to the location of the error it is reading you can now turn the quick key mode off (INSERT Z again) and correct the error.
6. To move on to the next error, enter quick key mode in the usual way and press "M" again from your current position. That's it!

So, if you like working with JAWS quick keys then this might be a more appropriate route for you - especially if, for whatever reason, you just don't get on with the standard spellchecker.

Spelling as you Type Setting

Maybe you tried the above and heard the message from JAWS indicating that because "spelling as you type is disabled" the quick key option is not available. In this case, you will need to enable the "spelling as you type" option in the MS Word settings area. (This is the setting that pops a wavy red line under any spelling mistake on screen in case you're wondering.) To follow is the steps for activating/deactivating this setting in Word 2007, bear in mind that with a different version you may need to adjust them slightly:

1. Open the Office button menu using ALT F.
2. TAB or SHIFT TAB to the Word options button or, alternatively, tap the hotkey of "I" to launch Word options directly.
3. Focus will be in a list of pages, such as "Popular", "Display" and "Proofing". Press DOWN ARROW to move to "Proofing" then TAB to move from the heading to the associated options. (Specifcially, initial focus will be on an "autocorrect options" button.)
4. While you can TAB your way through the myriad checkboxes in this page, it is quicker to simply use ALT P to move focus to the "Check Spelling as you Type" checkbox directly. Use the SPACEBAR to toggle the setting on and off as required.
5. With the option set, TAB to the OK button and use SPACEBAR to activate. You're good to go!

Until next time, have fun with quick keys!

Drop Down Lists in Cells - Excel 2007 - JAWS

Cell Drop Down Lists and JAWS

Something that crops up now and again at work in Excel is the issue of cell validation, how to set it up in a cell and how this works with a screenreader such as JAWS. In past times, this has been tricky to achieve, but these days it works really well.

I'm going to explain how we do this in Office 2007, I'm going to set up a cell with a specific list of choices and then we're going to run through working with that and try to mess it up and see what happens!

Set a List of Options for a Cell

Before we can check on how the cell validation works we need to have a drop down list in place so that's our first job. By the way, I'm using Excel 2007 and JAWS V15, so you may need to adjust the following steps if you're running with different versions:

1. Open Excel 2007 and make sure you have focus in cell A1.
2. In cell A1, type in "Do you like Marmite?" and use TAB to move to cell B1.
3. With focus in cell B1, use the ALT key to move to the upper ribbon and then RIGHT or LEFT ARROW to move focus to the Data tab heading. Alternatively, you can use ALT A to open this tab heading straight away.
4. Tap the DOWN ARROW to move to the lower ribbon and TAB through the commands until you have focus on the Data Validation... split button. Use the SPACEBAR to activate this button. Note: to go straight to this dialog box using the jazzy new Office keys the sequence is: ALT A, V, V.
5. With the Data Validation dialog box in focus, press TAB to move focus to the Allow drop down (ALT A) and choose "List".
6. When you confirm the "List" option, focus will move to the "Source:" edit field. This is where you type in the choices that you need the person inputting to pick from. In my example, I am only allowing two possible options - Yes, No. So, I type: Yes, No - into the edit field. NOTE: This is case sensitive, so you may want to input different case versions of your text. For example: "YES", "Yes" and "yes".
7. With the options set, I TAB away and then use CONTROL TAB to move to the Error Alert page in the dialog box. This page allows you to detail what happens when the person working in Excel doesn't supply the right inputs. I have several options here that I can TAB between in the Error Alert page, these are:
• Style (ALT Y): This allows you to choose between three icons that can be displayed: "Stop" displays a cross inside a circle, "Warning" displays an exclamation mark in a triangle and "Information" displays a lower case letter I in a circle.
• Title (ALT T): Here you can type in the main banner heading for your message.
• Error Message (ALT E): This text field is where you can explain, in slightly more detail, the information required.
8. For my example, I have chosen the Warning symbol, typed in a title ("Ooops!") and some extra text to explain that I require a simple "Yes" or "No" response. With these options in place, I TAB to the OK button and use SPACEBAR. The drop down list is now in place.

Now it's time to test it out!

Access Drop Down List Options in a Specific Cell

1. When you have focus on a cell with some validation, JAWS indicates that the cell has a "drop down list." If you miss this information, use INSERT TAB to read the current cell again.
2. With focus on the specific cell, use ALT DOWN ARROW to expand the list.

3. Use the DOWN and UP ARROW KEYS to move through the options in the list and press the ENTER key to confirm a choice.
4. To collapse the list without choosing, use the ESCAPE key.
5. Double-check that your choice appears in the cell by either moving away and back again or by using INSERT TAB.

Testing the Validation

But let's cut to the chase - what if you ignore the drop down list options and try and type your own entry? Well, this is where your "Error Alert" should kick in and do the business for us. In theory, you should have a message box with your text in it so let's test this out:

1. With focus on the cell containing the drop down list, instead of choosing from the drop down list I ignore it entirely and type in the word "food" and use the ENTER key.
2. Immediately, Excel pipes up with a warning message containing my Title and Error Message text. JAWS reads this information but if I miss it I can always re-read the dialog box contents with INSERT B.
3. The error message dialog box also gives me several button options in response to how I want to proceed. Of particular importance is the "No" button, which is in focus by default, and the "Yes" button. If I decide to choose "No" then my input is cancelled and I return to the spreadsheet. If I choose "Yes" however, my manual input is accepted even though it doesn't meet my criteria.
4. In this case, I choose the "No" button - I mean, the author of the worksheet has put cell validation in for a reason after all!

And there you go - cell validation working neatly in Office 2007 with JAWS. I should also add that it's good form to embed some comments in the worksheet for anyone using a screenreader to alert him/her to the use of drop down lists. For example, if you have a column of drop-down lists, you might want to pop a comment in the cell with the column heading to give the person inputting the data a bit of a heads-up. (I covered Comments in Excel a while ago on this blog, if you need a refresh then have another read through.

Until next time - have fun!

Zoomtext Camera Feature - Webcam - CCTV

Camera Fun with Zoomtext V10

In this post I'm going to cover one of the more recently introduced features in Zoomtext. Providing you have V10 or over you may have noticed some of the new features situated in the Tools menu (ALT T). If you have the “Magnifier only” version of Zoomtext you'll find two items in the Tools menu, namely “Camera...” and “Launch Camera”. But if you have the full “Magnifier and Reader” installation then you'll find another few items such as the Text Recorder and Background Reader - in fact, I covered the latter in a post a while back here. In this post though I want to play with the camera feature and see if my old webcam can be given a new lease of life.

So, what's the deal here? Well, the basic idea is that if you have a semi-decent USB webcam (or, in my case, a really old poor quality USB webcam) you can drive this camera from inside Zoomtext and treat it like a portable CCTV. No great shakes there you might be thinking, until you recall the sobering fact that most CCTVs have a wince-inducing price tag! So, while you don't get all the bells and whistles of a top-flight CCTV, you do get some basic, functional CCTV ability. Additionally, if you are running on a laptop, you can factor in the portability of the solution too. Not bad, considering you have the Zoomtext software and the webcam already anyway.

Setting Up the Webcam

1. Plug in your USB webcam, if it isn’t already attached to your PC.
2. Ensure that your webcam is placed on a stand, or at the very least is suitably supported to enable you to focus appropriately on an example printed page.
3. Access the Tools menu (ALT T) in the main Zoomtext user interface and choose the Camera... option. 
   
4. In the Camera dialog box use the TAB key to move around the options. Notice the Active Camera field - this should contain the name of the camera you are using - although, if you have more than one camera, then you will need to select the correct device here.
5. Also, notice that you can set the View Mode for the current Camera, choosing between a "Full Screen" or a "Docked Screen" style of view. If you choose the latter then you can Dock the camera view to the top, bottom, left or right hand half of the screen by default.
6. When you have finished exploring, set the options in the dialog box as required and use TAB to move to the OK button. Use the SPACEBAR to confirm and close the dialog box.

Toggle the Camera On and Off

Now that you have run through the main Camera settings dialog box the final step is to launch the camera. You can do this by either:

• Opening the Tools menu as before and choosing one of the camera views from the Launch Camera submenu.
• Activating the Launch Camera button in the Camera… dialog box via the Tools menu.
• Pressing the keystroke of ALT WINDOWS M, this toggles the camera display on and off.

Now that you can launch the camera function, grab a page of printed text and place it in the range of the webcam.

Using the Webcam to Read Text

Just how much control you can have over your webcam through Zoomtext really depends on the camera hardware itself. For example, the webcam I have is a simple fixed focus affair so I have to manually move it to an optimal distance away from the material I want to read - in my case around 17-18 centimetres away.

If you have a manual focus webcam then you can make focusing adjustments via the Focus option in the Camera toolbar or by using the following keystrokes:

• Manually Focus In: CONTROL WINDOWS RIGHT ARROW
• Manually Focus Out: CONTROL WINDOWS LEFT

With some suitable material in place, you can now change a few settings to suit your requirements.

Keyboard Control of the Camera

As you might expect, there's a whole bunch of keystrokes that can be used to switch between the different modes of operation and to alter various settings.

First, you can choose between running in Full Screen Mode (which will also remove the specific Camera Toolbar from the screen) and a half-screen Docked View (where the specific Camera Toolbar is available). You control these display options with the following hotkeys:

• Toggle Full Screen and Split View: ALT WINDOWS V
• Cycle through Split View Settings: ALT WINDOWS S

Depending on the material you are trying to read and the position of your webcam, you may also need to rotate the display. This will work whether you are in "full" or "split" screen modes:

• Rotate camera screen (full and split views): ALT WINDOWS R

On most CCTV systems you have various colour and clarity options that you can choose from to increase contrast levels. The settings here are no different, with a bunch of colour schemes that you can cycle through and choose from. Also, when you have set your preferred colour scheme, you can choose to customise the brightness and contrast levels as required. Doing this gives you complete control over the clarity of the image and can be the difference between reading something comfortably - or not!

• Toggle the Colour Scheme View On and Off: ALT WINDOWS SPACEBAR
• Cycle through available Colour Schemes: ALT WINDOWS C
• Decrease image brightness: ALT WINDOWS UP ARROW
• Decrease image contrast: ALT CONTROL WINDOWS DOWN ARROW
• Increase image brightness: ALT WINDOWS DOWN ARROW
• Increase image contrast: ALT CONTROL WINDOWS UP ARROW
• Reset to the default clarity settings: ALT WINDOWS B

An Example Scenario

In this example, I want to use my webcam to read some text on a bottle label. I will use the black and yellow colour scheme and manually set the contrast levels to enable an easier read. Let's go:

1. Connect the USB camera.
2. Position the camera and the material to be read on a suitable surface - obviously, I will have to move both around in due course.
3. In Zoomtext, turn the camera mode on with ALT WINDOWS M.
4. I'm in one of the split views to begin with which is fine, so now I cycle through the colour schemes (ALT WINDOWS C) to get to black and yellow.
5. At this point I move the bottle a little bit so that it appears sharper. I also increase the contrast with ALT CONTROL WINDOWS UP ARROW.
6. Now I zoom in slightly to focus more on the text using ALT WINDOWS NUMBERPAD PLUS.
7. After a few more manual adjustments of moving the bottle (the ambient lighting is not balanced on all sides so I have to move it around) I switch to full camera view (ALT WINDOWS ) and read the text.
8. With the job done, I set it back to split view (ALT WINDOWS V) and reset my clarity changes back to their defaults with ALT WINDOWS B.
9. Finally, I turn the colour schemes off with ALT WINDOWS SPACEBAR then turn the camera feature feature off completely with ALT WINDOWS M.

And there you go! A pretty nifty feature - especially if you have a semi-decent webcam kicking around in the back of a drawer in the first place. But, either way, it's definitely worth taking some time out to experiment with it. Until next time, have fun!

Managing Key Labels - JAWS V15

Amending Key Label Settings with JAWS V15

When you start out using a screenreader you tend to hang on every word or every bit of "echo" the software provides. But, over time, you start to focus on the audio cues you actually need. In fact, the mission with your screenreader soon becomes one of paring down all that beginner level verbosity which can, ultimately, get really irritating.

A valuable option in trying to personalise the JAWS echo is to manage the labels spoken for some of the keys on your keyboard. As you know, when you use certain keys on the keyboard, JAWS will indicate the key you have pressed. But what is often under-acknowledged is that you have some control over how JAWS is doing this - in fact, over whether JAWS speaks at all!

To give you an idea of how JAWS can control this type of key label echo, I am going to walk through how to both mute the echo completely and also how to change the label to a text string of your own choosing. (So, if you always wanted to have a TAB KEY echo "Gerald" every time you press it, then read on!)

Toggle Key Label Speech On and Off

1. With JAWS running, use the keystroke of INSERT F2 to open the Run JAWS Manager list box.
2. Use the letter S several times to quickly move to the Settings Centre item in the list and use ENTER.
3. Press CONTROL SHIFT D to open the Default Configuration file in the Settings Centre dialog box.
4. In the Search field (CONTROL E) type in the word "Manage" then DOWN ARROW to focus on "Manage Key Labels..." Press ENTER.
5. Focus will now be on "Manage Key Labels..." in the formal tree view of settings, so tap F6 to move and focus on the "Manage Key Labels button..." Use SPACEBAR to activate this.
6. The Manage Key labels dialog box will now open and your focus will be in a list view, each row containing three columns of information. Use the DOWN ARROW to move through the options and listen to the feedback for each item.

7. The three columns of information for each item in the list is as follows:
• Key Name: This is the name of the key on the keyboard.
• Key Label: This is the text label spoken when the key is used.
• Mute Status: This piece of information shows whether the label is spoken or not. NOTE: if the text is "Always Speak" then you are unable to mute that key.
8. With focus in the list, press the letter "T" to move to the "Tab" key entry in the list. Notice that "Tab" is set to "Speak" and the key label is "Tab".
9. Use the ALT T keystroke to toggle the Mute Status on and off - in this case, set it to "mute".
10. Use INSERT UP ARROW to conduct a final read across the columns for the Tab key and ensure that the Mute setting is active.
11. Press the TAB key to move to the OK button and use SPACEBAR to confirm.
12. Focus will move back to the Manage Key Labels... button so tap the F6 key to return to the tree view, then TAB to the OK button. Use the SPACEBAR to confirm and activate your configuration change.

Now go into a new document (or navigate around something like the CONTROL P Print File Dialog box) in MS Word and test out your new silent TAB key!

Customise Key Label Speech

But what if you want to change the text that is spoken rather than turn the text off completely? In this example I'm going to change the echo speech "Num Lock" into "Number Lock".

1. Follow the steps as previous to navigate through the Settings Centre, choosing the default file and Manage Key Labels dialog box.
2. Locate the "Num Lock" item in the list.
3. This time, use the keystroke of ALT C to activate the Change Label button.
4. Focus moves to an edit field, replace "Num Lock" with "Number Lock".
5. Press the TAB key to move to the OK button and use SPACEBAR to confirm.
6. As before, use the F6 key to move to the tree view then TAB to OK and confirm with SPACEBAR.

Now test out your new key label for Number Lock! I've never been keen on the "num lock" echo which sounds like a wrestling move to me. Anyway, until next time, have fun!