JAWS INTERFACE

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS:

VERBOSITY: the amount of information Jaws speaks

KEYS YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW:

Windows keys: no new windows keys

Screen reader keys: insert v, insert f2

EXPLANATION:

By default Jaws behaves in a certain way from the time you install the program. The speech rate is set at a certain speed, the synthesizer is set for a certain voice, most punctuation is read and there are many other default settings. As you become more familiar with Jaws, you may want to change some of the settings to be more of what you want. There are many settings that you can change but we will look at four areas of Jaws where you can change options. You can alt tab to the Jaws interface or press insert j. The Jaws interface is menu driven, which means you can access the menus with the alt key, navigate the menu using arrow keys and navigate the dialogue boxes with arrow keys and tab.

First, open the Options menu. Go to options and arrow to basics… and press enter. Two options that I’ll point out is the Automatically start JAWS button and the Use Keyboard Layout combo box.

Second, open Options and arrow to Voices… then arrow to Global Adjustment. We’ll look at rate, punctuation and restore to factory settings here.

Third, open Options and arrow to Voices… then arrow to Individual Voice Adjustment. We’ll look at modifying default or current application, the voice options and the restore to factory settings again.

Forth, open the Utilities menu. We’ll look at Dictionary manager and configuration manager.

We’ll add two words to the dictionary; Kingshighway and Chippewa.

Two other items we’ll look at in this lesson.

One is adjusting Jaws verbosity options. The command key used is insert v.

The other is Run Jaws Manger. The command key used is insert f2.