Good day.
I'm glad to find an 'accessibility' sub-genre of apps here.
I thought I'd show you a nice Screen Reader that is also Portable.
I use it at University on computers that do not have the standard access programs available.
http://www.nvaccess.org/nvda/
-Non-Visual Desktop Access
http://www.nvda-project.org/releases/nv ... rtable.zip
-Portable Edition
---General Features
Providing feedback by synthetic speech, NVDA allows blind and vision impaired people to access and interact with all parts of the Windows operating system, such as:
* Browsing the web (with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox)
* Reading and writing documents with programs such as Wordpad or Microsoft Word
* Sending and receiving email with Outlook Express
* Using command-line programs in Dos windows
* Producing basic spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel
* General computer management through My Computer / Windows Explorer, Control Panel applets, and other generic Windows tasks
---
It comes with the eSpeak TTS synthesizer, and can be configured to use Sapi4/Sapi5 voices, in English or any other supported language. (I've tested it with English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic sofar.)
Thanks for sharing the apps,
-phalos
NVDA - Accessibility screen reader
-
portackager
- Posts: 169
- Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:01 pm
NVDA - Accessibility screen reader
I've taken a class that had a blind student, which got me interested in accessibility and screen readers.. NVDA is one screenread that seems promising, noticing that the majority for windows are commercial (non free)
Found the software from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers
The speech output is super fast by default (can be slowed down) and it's not 100% stable sometimes continues to read even after I'ved moved onto something else and sometime uses alot of cpu usage besides that its pretty good probably better than the one included with windows.
website: http://www.nvda-project.org/
download: http://www.nvda-project.org/download.html
stealth: not tested
writes settings to application directory
Grab the portable zip file from the download page, extract and run nvda.exe
Found the software from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers
The speech output is super fast by default (can be slowed down) and it's not 100% stable sometimes continues to read even after I'ved moved onto something else and sometime uses alot of cpu usage besides that its pretty good probably better than the one included with windows.
liscence: opensource/freewareNVDA is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows Operating System. This software can enable blind or vision impaired people to access computers running Windows, for no more cost than a sighted person.
Providing feedback by synthetic speech, NVDA allows blind and vision impaired people to access and interact with all parts of the Windows operating system, such as:
* Browsing the web (with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox)
* Reading and writing documents with programs such as Wordpad or Microsoft Word
* Sending and receiving email with Outlook Express
* Using command-line programs in Dos windows
* Producing basic spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel
* General computer management through My Computer / Windows Explorer, Control Panel applets, and other generic Windows tasks
website: http://www.nvda-project.org/
download: http://www.nvda-project.org/download.html
stealth: not tested
writes settings to application directory
Grab the portable zip file from the download page, extract and run nvda.exe
NVDA - Free Screen Reader
The website is still:
The previous reviewer complained that the program didn't appear stable. The newest version released Feb 24 seems very stable. I am blind and depend on this software. It runs flawlessly from my flash drive and leaves no settings behind on the host PC. It's the only screen reader that is completely open-source. I work for a college, and can walk up to any PC on campus and administer it eyes-free. This means that I can solve computer problems for less experienced users without needing someone to read what's on the screen. It makes me a valued employee who can work independently without needing a special adapted computer.
The sighted reviewer who posted previously stated that speech continued after he focused on something new. This was because he didn't know how to silence speech -- tap shift or control, or any other typing will siolence speech. Sighted mouse users typically expect a screen reader to follow their mous and that's not possible, since speech would constantly stutter as it attempted to keep up with a mouse flitting about. Speech instead tracks the focus, responding to keystrokes. Test this program by keeping your hands away from your mouse and navigating strictly with the keyboard. You'll find it reads relevant information fine.
The reviewwer also stated that it started with the speech too fast. Most experienced blind screen access users would find it started with speech at a painfully slow rate. This program is intended for the intermediate or advanced blind computer user. We typically don't hear the speech, just as you sighted guys don't think about what font you are viewing, you just read what's onscreen. When I hear speech I am only vaguely aware that the voice is artificial. I simply am reading what's onscreen.
NVDA has review features so a user can navigate through and examine what's already been read or explore what is onscreen. It has extra support for MS Office and Outlook Express, but also works well with OpenOffice and Thunderbird.
NVDA has speech built-in -- the open-source Espeak engine it uses does not depend on the PC having SAPI voices installed. Espeak can speak in several languages, and though it defaults to brittish english, can speak with a U.S. or a Lancashire, Australian or even west indies accent!
It works particularly well with Firefox 3. Best results can be obtained from people who take the time to RTFM! -- Debeee Armstrong
Code: Select all
http://www.nvda-project.org/
The sighted reviewer who posted previously stated that speech continued after he focused on something new. This was because he didn't know how to silence speech -- tap shift or control, or any other typing will siolence speech. Sighted mouse users typically expect a screen reader to follow their mous and that's not possible, since speech would constantly stutter as it attempted to keep up with a mouse flitting about. Speech instead tracks the focus, responding to keystrokes. Test this program by keeping your hands away from your mouse and navigating strictly with the keyboard. You'll find it reads relevant information fine.
The reviewwer also stated that it started with the speech too fast. Most experienced blind screen access users would find it started with speech at a painfully slow rate. This program is intended for the intermediate or advanced blind computer user. We typically don't hear the speech, just as you sighted guys don't think about what font you are viewing, you just read what's onscreen. When I hear speech I am only vaguely aware that the voice is artificial. I simply am reading what's onscreen.
NVDA has review features so a user can navigate through and examine what's already been read or explore what is onscreen. It has extra support for MS Office and Outlook Express, but also works well with OpenOffice and Thunderbird.
NVDA has speech built-in -- the open-source Espeak engine it uses does not depend on the PC having SAPI voices installed. Espeak can speak in several languages, and though it defaults to brittish english, can speak with a U.S. or a Lancashire, Australian or even west indies accent!
It works particularly well with Firefox 3. Best results can be obtained from people who take the time to RTFM! -- Debeee Armstrong
Re: NVDA - Accessibility screen reader
Lately, I've been using my machine to read back text to me and to help catch errors in text I've gone over 10+ times. Some phrasing you don't want to be good but near-perfect, and text-to-speech tools can help with that.
Oddly, the default Microsoft Word 2016 text-to-speech program is remarkably buggy, sometimes having to click the icon multiple times to enable. Plus, the quality is well behind tools on other platforms. I was especially surprised that LibreOffice with the Read Text plugin in some ways works better, even if the interface is odd.
With this in mind, I went digging for a program that might work a bit better, though it wasn't NVDA (v2019.1.1). The program didn't seem to actually read anything, I couldn't add new voices as discussed on the Github page and usage was very opaque. I also seemed to have some difficulty just closing the program, having to end-task the program. It seemed to interfere with my local keyboard. Normally I'd describe something like this as early-stage but this has been around for some time.
As to it's portability, my system monitor crashed while testing so I don't have clear evidence that its portable, though I think it writes to the app folder in userConfig\nvda.ini
EDIT: I believe the playback was an audio problem on my machine and not necessarily NVDA's issue.
---
Related: Softpedia mirror: https://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE- ... NVDA.shtml
Oddly, the default Microsoft Word 2016 text-to-speech program is remarkably buggy, sometimes having to click the icon multiple times to enable. Plus, the quality is well behind tools on other platforms. I was especially surprised that LibreOffice with the Read Text plugin in some ways works better, even if the interface is odd.
With this in mind, I went digging for a program that might work a bit better, though it wasn't NVDA (v2019.1.1). The program didn't seem to actually read anything, I couldn't add new voices as discussed on the Github page and usage was very opaque. I also seemed to have some difficulty just closing the program, having to end-task the program. It seemed to interfere with my local keyboard. Normally I'd describe something like this as early-stage but this has been around for some time.
As to it's portability, my system monitor crashed while testing so I don't have clear evidence that its portable, though I think it writes to the app folder in userConfig\nvda.ini
EDIT: I believe the playback was an audio problem on my machine and not necessarily NVDA's issue.
---
Related: Softpedia mirror: https://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE- ... NVDA.shtml
Re: NVDA - Accessibility screen reader
Update: PortableApps put out a version of this a few months back:
Announcement: https://portableapps.com/news/2021-08-0 ... 1-released
Home: https://portableapps.com/apps/accessibi ... a-portable
Announcement: https://portableapps.com/news/2021-08-0 ... 1-released
Home: https://portableapps.com/apps/accessibi ... a-portable