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I'm working on a web application and I want to make it easy to use via screen reader. Testing stuff in JAWS is time consuming. Is it possible to make JAWS display text instead of reading it? I don't want actually to hear the content during development. I just want to see what would be read by JAWS.

avalancha
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szym
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6 Answers6

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There is no speech viewer for Jaws, as far as I know. However, you can make it write all speech output to a log file using the "/z" switch. Unfortunately, you cannot view the log file in a text editor while the screen reader is running, because it is locked. Open a command prompt or bring up the Run dialog by pressing Win+r and type: "jaws_executable" /z"log_file" Where "jaws_executable" is the full path and file name of the Jaws application and "log_file" is the location and name of the speech log file. Important: There should be no space between "/z" and the log file name.

Nektarios Paisios
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  • This answer is outdated, see @TimHayes answer for the speech history feature available from JAWS 15 – NomeN Dec 07 '22 at 09:45
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This is an old thread, but since it came up top in my search I thought I'd update it. JAWS 15 has just introduced this capability through the "Speech History" feature. Follow these directions to enable it:

If you miss one or more messages spoken by JAWS, you can press INSERT+SPACEBAR, followed by H to open a Results Viewer window containing up to the last 50 announcements spoken by the synthesizer. When the Speech History window opens, you are placed on the line containing the most recent announcement. To clear the history, press INSERT+SPACEBAR, followed by SHIFT+H. The history is also cleared when you lock the computer or completely log off. If you do not want JAWS to maintain a speech history, clear the Enable Speech History check box in Settings Center.

Read more in the JAWS 15 What's New document under New Speech History for Speech-only Users.

For those of you stuck with JAWS 14, Nektarios Paisios answer using the "/z" log worked best for me.

TimHayes
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I believe there is a visual indicator in JAWS, but my version of JAWS is being a bit wonky. These days, NVDA plays pretty similarly to JAWS, so you can use that, and it has a speech output console: Right click the NVDA icon in the system tray, select Tools, and Speech Viewer.

Ryan B
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  • That is very helpful but still I need to test using JAWS. – szym Apr 19 '13 at 08:21
  • check out the visual indicator i mentioned in the help file, thats your only option. Why does it *have* to be JAWS? – Ryan B Apr 19 '13 at 12:05
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    Can't find such thing as 'visual indicator'. The reason is very simple http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/#used. – szym Apr 19 '13 at 16:17
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    Maybe the indicator was removed from JAWS. Yes JAWS is the top screen reader, but it also been around for 17/18 years versus NVDA which has been around for 6 or 7. Unless you have a business requirement stating thou shalt not use NVDA, I would use it – Ryan B Apr 19 '13 at 20:28
  • I agree with @Ryan. NVDA is a widely used and sophisticated screen reader. You may be creating unnecessary work for yourself by being bound to just JAWS. – ckundo Apr 19 '13 at 23:38
  • All dough my question was concerning JAWS it looks like JAWS does not provide such feature. Braille Viewer isn't showing exactly the same information as the one provided via synthesizer. It looks like the best solution here is to use NVDA with Speach viewer. Thanks for all your help guys! – szym Apr 29 '13 at 14:35
  • JAWS has no longer such a big share of the market as it used to: a 30% share. NVDA and Windows Eyes combined have more share, and you still have a few more players: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/ – AJJ Jan 25 '17 at 11:21
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The easiest way to see what a screen reader 'sees' is to disable the CSS. This will show you everything on the page that the screen reader can access. This will give you a good idea what is going on during development until you want to get into the more complicated stuff.

See http://www.iheni.com/quick-tip-testing-web-content-for-screen-readers-without-a-screen-reader/. This site has a lot of useful info too http://webaim.org/articles/.

r8n5n
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  • This used to be an ok way to test stuff years ago, but wouldn't recommend using it these days unless you are in a big pinch – Ryan B Apr 18 '13 at 14:19
  • This may be good for very simple pages. Not for web applications were you use wai-aria to achieve accessibility features in widgets. – szym Apr 19 '13 at 08:01
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You can enable the Braille Viewer in Start Menu > All Programs > JAWS 14.0 > Braille Viewer.

Braille Viewer will render visual text output of what would be sent to a braille display. It sometimes uses abbreviations or shorthand but is a close representation of the speech output.

Also take a look at Fangs Screen Reader Emulator for Firefox. It will render a text output of what a screen reader would announce on a page, in the correct read order, though it does not render dynamic content.

ckundo
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  • Does not support aria roles so actually it does not work like a modern screen reader. – szym Apr 19 '13 at 08:06
  • It is not intended to be a comprehensive replacement for a screen reader, just a visual representation of read order. I edited your question to clarify you are concerned with ARIA as well. – ckundo Apr 19 '13 at 11:58
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JAWS is supplied with a Braille Viewer in the 'Utilities' folder, which will render any text from the focus.