JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is a screen reader software that is designed to read the text on a computer screen for people who are visually impaired or blind. It has a variety of keystrokes that users can use to navigate and read the content on the screen more efficiently. In this post, we will discuss the JAWS keystrokes for reading text and moving cursor. I divided these commands into different groups so that you can easily remember them.
Read Characters
- Say Prior Character: LEFT ARROW – This command reads the character to the left of the cursor.
- Say Next Character: RIGHT ARROW – This command reads the character to the right of the cursor.
- Say Character: NUM PAD 5 – This command reads the character at the cursor.
- Say Character Phonetically: NUM PAD 5 twice quickly – This command spells out the character at the cursor phonetically.
Read Words
- Say Next Word: INSERT+RIGHT ARROW or CTRL+RIGHT ARROW – This command reads the word to the right of the cursor.
- Say Word: INSERT+NUM PAD 5 – This command reads the word at the cursor.
- Spell Word: INSERT+NUM PAD 5 twice quickly – This command spells out the word at the cursor.
Read Sentences
- Say Prior Sentence: ALT+NUM PAD MINUS – This command reads the sentence above the current sentence.
- Say Next Sentence: ALT+NUM PAD PLUS – This command reads the sentence below the current sentence.
Read Lines
- Say Prior Line: UP ARROW – This command reads the line above the current line.
- Say Next Line: DOWN ARROW – This command reads the line below the current line.
- Say Current Line: INSERT+UP ARROW – This command reads the current line.
- Spell Current Line: INSERT+UP ARROW twice quickly – This command spells out the current line.
- Say to Cursor: INSERT+HOME – This command reads from the beginning of the line to the cursor.
- Say from Cursor: INSERT+PAGE UP – This command reads from the cursor to the end of the line.
- Spell to Cursor: INSERT+HOME twice quickly – This command spells out from the beginning of the line to the cursor.
- Spell from Cursor: INSERT+PAGE UP twice quickly – This command spells out from the cursor to the end of the line.
Read Paragraphs
- Say prior paragraph: CTRL+UP ARROW – This command reads the paragraph above the current paragraph.
- Say next paragraph: CTRL+DOWN ARROW – This command reads the paragraph below the current paragraph.
- Say current paragraph: CTRL+NUM PAD 5 – This command reads the current paragraph.
Say All
- Say All: INSERT+DOWN ARROW – This command reads the entire document from the beginning to the end.
- Fast Forward during a Say All: RIGHT ARROW – During a Say All command, pressing the right arrow key will skip forward to the next sentence.
- Rewind during a Say All: LEFT ARROW – During a Say All command, pressing the left arrow key will rewind to the beginning of the current sentence.
- Stop during a Say All: CTRL – During a Say All command, pressing the CTRL key will stop reading.
Move Cursor
- Move to beginning: HOME – This command moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.
- Move to End: END – This commands moves the cursor to end of the line.
- Move one screen up: PAGE UP – This command moves the one screen above from the current screen.
- Move one screen down: PAGE DOWN – This command moves the one screen below from the current screen.
- Move to top: CTRL+HOME – This commands moves the cursor to beginning of the document.
- Move to bottom: CTRL+END – This command moves the cursor to the end of document.
- Move to prior page: CTRL+PAGE UP – This command moves the cursor to the beginning of previous page.
- Move to next page: CTRL+PAGE DOWN – This command moves the cursor to the beginning of next page.