NVDA is a free and open source screen reader from NVAccess. It is available for the Windows operating system and officially supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome web browsers. There is also a ton of braille display support!
NVDA is available for download here: http://www.nvaccess.org/download/
After everything is installed you can press Ctrl + Alt + n
to start NVDA. Quitting NVDA is done by pressing NVDA + q
, then enter
at the prompt.
Each screen reader has a special key or key combination to perform tasks. NVDA’s default keyboard modifier key is the insert
key. So, for example, to start reading a web page, you could press insert + down arrow
. As an option, if you are using a laptop you can also use the caps lock key as a modifier. This can be set in the Preferences > Keyboard settings...
menu.