partners

This time around, we wanted to put the spotlight on Braille. We have a very enthusiastic community of Braille users, and we wanted to share where we’re at, what we’ve added recently, and importantly – to ask for your help prioritising where to go next. Let’s dive in!

1. Survey – What should we prioritise?
2. Recent Braille Improvements
3. Upcoming Braille improvements
4. NVDA 2024.4 Release Candidate now out

Survey – what should we prioritise?

One of the themes which came through from the NVDA Satisfaction Survey earlier this year, was to improve Braille support. Many of the comments were quite general, such as “I would like better Braille support” and “Braille could be improved”. So, we would like to follow up on those comments by asking for more detailed feedback on exactly how you would like to see Braille support improved?

To help us target the most needed improvements, we have created a short survey. If you use NVDA with braille at least some of the time, please consider completing This short NVDA Braille Users Survey. Please do fill in the brief survey and pass it on to anyone you know who might be interested!

Recent Braille Improvements

While we are looking forward to what improvements you would like to see in NVDA’s braille support going forward, we thought we would share some key braille improvements from the past year which you can enjoy in NVDA right now. It is important to note, that every one of these issues started its journey as a GitHub Issue. If there is anything you would like to see improved in NVDA, the most efficient way, is to create a clear, concise and detailed issue on GitHub explaining the steps to reproduce the problem, what happens, what you think SHOULD happen, and details about your setup (for instance if something isn’t displaying correctly, then knowing which display and Braille table you are using is important). The exact information which is useful will vary between issues and whether something is a bug (a feature not working as it should) or a feature request (adding something new NVDA has never had support for before). If you get stuck writing an issue, you can always ask for help in the NVDA user email group or write to us directly.

So, let’s have a look at some of the Braille highlights this year. These have included Unicode normalisation, custom Braille tables, “Display Speech Output” mode, and many updates, fixes, new tables and display support!

NVDA 2024.3

• Options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output
• Support for Help Tech Activator Pro displays
• New Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet
• The fallback braille input table is now equal to the fallback output table, which is Unified English Braille Code grade 1
• NVDA will no longer cut off speech and braille when reviewing kaomojis and symbols in the emoji panel
• Support for custom braille tables has been added

NVDA 2024.2

• New braille mode called “display speech output”
• Support was also added for the BrailleEdgeS2 and BrailleEdgeS3 displays
• New Belarusian and Ukrainian Braille tables, a Lao table, and a Spanish table for reading Greek texts
• Updated gestures for BrailleSense devices to avoid conflicts with characters of the French braille table

NVDA 2024.1

• New Thai, Filipino and Romanian braille tables
• Support for Bluetooth Low Energy HID Braille displays
• Multi line braille displays will no longer crash the BRLTTY driver and are treated as one continuous display
• More objects which contain useful text are detected, and text content is displayed in braille
• Contracted braille input works properly again
• Braille is now updated when moving the navigator object between table cells in more situations
• The result of reporting current focus, current navigator object, and current selection commands is now shown in braille
• The Albatross braille driver no longer handles a Esp32 microcontroller as an Albatross display
• In Excel with UIA disabled, braille is updated, and the active cell content is spoken, when control+y, control+z or alt+backspace is pressed
• In Word with UIA disabled braille is updated when control+v, control+x, control+y, control+z, alt+backspace, backspace or control+backspace is pressed. It is also updated with UIA enabled, when typing text and braille is tethered to review and review follows caret

Upcoming Braille improvements

What have we got in the pipeline? Great question! Currently available in the 2024.4 release candidate, you can find:

NVDA 2024.4:

• Fixes for Braille display of column headers in Word
• NVDA can now report font attributes in speech and braille separately
• Custom text formatting attributes in Braille
• NVDA can display the start of paragraphs in Braille
• NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action (plus improved routing reliability and PowerPoint support)
• All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille
• Fixed crash when restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan
• New Braille tables for Thai and Greek international braille & fix for numbers in Spanish
• Fixed error panning forward in empty edit controls

And in NVDA 2025.1 so far, we already have some Braille improvements ready to go (subject to change):

• Support for the Dot Pad tactile graphics device from Dot Inc as a multiline braille display
• Braille is no longer dysfunctional when activating ‘say all’ with an associated configuration profile
• In LibreOffice, the current checkbox state (checked/unchecked) is now also reported in braille, not just speech

NVDA 2024.4 Release Candidate now out

The Release Candidate (RC) of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. We encourage all users to download this RC and provide feedback. Unless any critical bugs are found, this will be identical to the final 2024.4 release.

Full information and download at the NVDA 2024.4 Release Candidate announcement.

That’s all for this week. Please do complete the NVDA Braille Users Survey and try out the NVDA 2024.4 release candidate. Do try some of those new Braille features and let us know what you think!

The Release Candidate (RC) of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. We encourage all users to download this RC and provide feedback. Unless any critical bugs are found, this will be identical to the final 2024.4 release.

By installing the RC you will be opting into NVDA’s beta/RC channel, and will only receive update notifications for these builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4rc1
  • SHA256 sum: 1eb5aefd79a4665d7ebc35f2bed7b7d9aa74e7371f9ee7d95bfc17faabeb83ea
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Thai and Greek international braille with single-cell accented letters.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

beta5 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4beta5
  • SHA256 sum: e3b862a2137a45ef1ca0e7b71edaca2697c725f4f9f50ef36e5043f326c76b57
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Thai and Greek international braille with single-cell accented letters.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

Changes introduced in Beta 5:

• Fixed an issue where the custom multiple key press timeout was not honoured when repeatedly pressing the NVDA key.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 4:

• Fixed the visual layout of NVDA’s Braille Settings page.
• Fixed an issue causing text not related to shortcut keys to appear in the Commands Quick Reference.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 3:

• Updated LibLouis Braille translator to 3.31.0.
  • Fixed translation of numbers in Spanish Braille.
  • New Braille tables:
    • Thai grade 1
    • Greek international Braille (single-cell accented letters)
  • Renamed tables:
    • “Thai 6 dot” was renamed to “Thai grade 0” for consistency reasons.
    • The existing “Greek international braille” table was renamed to “Greek international braille (2-cell accented letters)” to clarify the distinction between the two Greek systems.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.
• NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.
• Updates to translations.

Welcome back! We’ve got several releases and other news for you this time around, let’s get into it:

1. NVDA 2024.3.1 Released
2. Mykael makes it happen in Brazil
3. RACQ Road Ahead article
4. NVDA 2024.4 Beta 4
5. Which reference is right for me?

NVDA 2024.3.1 Released

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.3.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

NVDA 2024.3.1 is a patch release to fix a bug with the automatic add-on update notification. When automatically checking for add-on updates, NVDA no longer freezes on poor connections. We encourage all users of NVDA 2024.3 and earlier to update to NVDA 2024.3.1. Find the full details and download from the NVDA 2024.3.1 release announcement.

Mykael makes it happen in Brazil

We love hearing wonderful success stories from our users. This week, we are very pleased to present to you Mykael, who is busy making it happen in Brazil!

Thanks so much for sharing your story Mykael!

If you would like to share how you are using NVDA, like Mykael did, we’d love to hear from you! Please do drop us a line at info@nvaccess.org

RACQ Road Ahead article

NV Access is very pleased that RACQ’s “Road Ahead” Magazine interviewed us for an article on NVDA, “Revolutionising accessibility through a global community“. RACQ noted: “A Brisbane-based not-for-profit organisation is behind a global movement breaking down barriers for blind people.”

Read the full article on RACQ’s digital Spring 2024 “Road Ahead” magazine.

NVDA 2024.4 Beta 4

Beta4 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

Changes introduced in NVDA 2024.4 Beta 4:

• Fixed the visual layout of NVDA’s Braille Settings page
• Fixed an issue causing text not related to shortcut keys to appear in the Commands Quick Reference
• Updates to translations

Since the last In-Process we also had Beta 3, and that included:

• Updated LibLouis Braille translator to 3.31.0
• Fixed translation of numbers in Spanish Braille
• New Braille tables:
  • Thai grade 1
  • Greek international Braille (single-cell accented letters)
• Renamed tables:
  • “Thai 6 dot” was renamed to “Thai grade 0” for consistency reasons
  • The existing “Greek international braille” table was renamed to “Greek international braille (2-cell accented letters)” to clarify the distinction between the two Greek systems
• Updates to translations

Which reference is right for me?

One of the fixes in NVDA 2024.4 Beta 4 was to some of the text in the Commands Quick Reference. It prompted me to explore just what different types of documentation are there for NVDA? And which is right for you? Let’s have a quick look at the top 5!

1. Switching from Jaws to NVDA
   If you are coming from using another screen reader, then the Switching from Jaws to NVDA guide or the Switching from Window-Eyes to NVDA guide are both excellent resources to help you get up to speed with NVDA. They include answers to a lot of the “I know how to do XYZ with Jaws, how do I do the same task with NVDA?” type questions.
2. NVDA Quick Start Guide
   Part of the NVDA User Guide, the Quick Start Guide is for anyone and aims to get you up and running with NVDA as quickly as possible, whether you have used a screen reader previously or not. It includes a lot of the key features and keystrokes which you’ll want to know on day 1.
3. Training Modules
   The Basic Training for NVDA training module is available in a range of formats. It is in-depth, describing each new feature and how to use it, then giving you a practical step-by-step activity to complete using the feature. Review activities test your knowledge that little bit more before you continue.
4. User Guide
   The user guide covers every feature in NVDA. It gives you the keystrokes, but does not explain the full purpose of each feature in detail like the training material. Available from NVDA’s help menu and online.
5. Commands Quick Reference
   Derived from the keystrokes in the user guide, the commands quick reference is a less detailed list of the keystrokes in NVDA. Handy for when you know how to use a feature, but just can’t remember a particular keystroke. For instance, I know that you can jump between text paragraphs with NVDA (from reading In-Process), but I can’t remember the keystrokes? They’re listed in several places, one of which is the Commands Quick Reference. https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-19th-july-2024/#paragraphs

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back as we get closer to the release of NVDA 2024.4

NVDA Roadmap

This document outlines NV Access’s planned development roadmap for NVDA and its supporting infrastructure. Priorities are grouped into short, medium and long-term timeframes. This roadmap will be updated to reflect completed projects, development progress and significant changes to the world of screen readers and the wider technology space.

Short-Term Priorities

These priorities focus on enhancements and improvements that we aim to deliver in the near future.

• MathCAT integration into core: Integrating the MathCAT math expression reader directly into the NVDA core, providing seamless access to mathematical content.
• ARIA compliance: Continued improvements and updates to NVDA’s ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) support, ensuring compatibility with modern web content.
• Braille enhancements: Addressing known issues and improving the overall stability and reliability of braille support in NVDA.
• Braille font attributes: Adding support for braille font attributes, allowing for more customised and informative braille displays.
• Updated project linting: Updating our linting tools and rules to improve code quality and consistency across the project.
• Optimising certification system queries: Optimising database queries used by the NVDA certification system to improve performance and reduce latency.
• Containerising server infrastructure: Migrating our server infrastructure to containers, enhancing scalability, maintainability, and deployment flexibility.
• Add-on Store automatic updates: Enabling automatic updates for add-ons downloaded from the NVDA Add-on Store, ensuring users have the latest features and bug fixes.

Medium-Term Priorities

These priorities represent significant features and improvements that require more extensive development effort.

• Integration of NVDA Remote into core: Migrating the functionality of the NVDA Remote add-on into NVDA’s core for enhanced functionality and security.
• Braille multi-line prototype: Development of a prototype for multi-line braille display support, exploring new ways to present information in braille.
• Enhanced Excel UIA support: Improvements to NVDA’s UIA (User Interface Automation) support for Microsoft Excel, providing a more robust and intuitive experience for navigating and interacting with spreadsheets.
• Support for Microsoft Natural Voices: Adding support for Microsoft’s Natural Voices text-to-speech engine, expanding user choice and providing access to high-quality synthetic voices.
• Web front end for Add-on Store: Creating a web-based front end for the NVDA Add-on Store, making it more accessible and easier to browse and search for add-ons.
• Add-on installation telemetry: Gathering anonymous data on add-on installations to understand usage patterns to help prioritise development efforts to improve the add-on ecosystem.
• ARM installation telemetry: Gathering anonymous data on ARM installations, providing insights into changing usage patterns.
• Anonymous identifier: Implementation of a system for generating unique, rotating, anonymous identifiers for NVDA installations, allowing for better data collection and analysis without compromising user privacy.
• End of support for Windows 8.1, 2012/R2: Officially ending support for older versions of Windows, allowing us to focus on developing for modern operating systems and their latest accessibility features.

Long-Term Priorities

These priorities represent ambitious goals and initiatives that will shape the future of NVDA.

• Integrated AI image description: Free, secure, performant, private and VI-focussed AI image description available out of the box.
• Secure add-on environment: Building a more secure add-on ecosystem, protecting users from potentially malicious add-ons.
• Magnifier prototype: Exploring the development of a built-in screen magnification feature as a prototype, to better support our low-vision users.
• Feature usage telemetry: Implementing anonymous telemetry to track feature usage within NVDA, helping us understand how users interact with the software and identify areas for improvement.
• Official training material for NVDA accessibility testers: Developing comprehensive training materials for individuals interested in becoming NVDA accessibility testers, ensuring high-quality testing and feedback.
• NVDA help AI chatbot prototype: Exploring the development of an AI-powered chatbot to provide instant support and answer frequently asked questions about NVDA.
• Automated C++ and markdown linting: Implementing automated linting for C++ and Markdown files, further improving code quality and consistency within the project.

Contributing and Feedback

We encourage contributions from the community!

Please explore NVDA’s GitHub repository or user group to learn more about how you can get involved.

Recently, NVDA user Mykael reached out to us to share his story. We love sharing stories like this. Helping people achieve independence is why we are so passionate about NVDA. This story encapsulates it eloquently and succinctly too. Here is Mykael in his own words:

Hello! My name is Mykael, and I have physical and visual disabilities. I am Brazilian. I started using NVDA in 2012 while searching for a way to adapt well to the computer. By 2013, I had already received permission to bring a USB drive to the classroom and use the school computer with NVDA to read study materials. Before NVDA, I was forced to write in Braille, which took longer to correct, and if I made something wrong, there was no way to correct it. After the arrival of NVDA, my colleagues helped me by dictating the content, and teachers could instantly see the result.

Since then, NVDA has become my main screen reader. I completed my studies in 2018, and, in 2022, I started my first job at a telephone company. There, NVDA is the main reader among all blind people. And I thank you for this incredible work. Since last year, I have contributed monthly so that the reader continues to grow and develop. I love NVDA!

I feel part of NV access, being able to donate monthly and contribute to the screen reader that changed my life. I think what I like most about NVDA is the fact that it is free and accessible to everyone in every way. I’ve been an NVDA user since 2012, and seeing how much it has evolved is very satisfying. I say that software changed my life, because only we know how difficult it is to get a job, and companies rarely want to pay for software licenses.

Thank you, Mykael! We are so glad that NVDA has been a small part of your journey to employment! Simple things like having access to a portable copy of the software can make such an enormous difference to people. Not having license keys or restrictions to worry about makes it so much easier for people to use NVDA anywhere. NVDA is extremely popular in the workplace. It allows people to easily use the same screen reader at work and at home. There is no financial burden on the employee or workplace, and NVDA is regularly updated. We know that many employers need certain information to install any new software. To meet this demand, we have answers to a range of questions we commonly get asked on our corporate and government page.

If you share Mykael’s passion for NVDA and are in a position to donate, we would love to have your support. As a registered charity, donations over $2 in Australia are tax deductible. Plus, we have a neat badge you can use online to show your support.

Beta4 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4beta4
  • SHA256 sum: 7968a514020d27ce7c7cc842ce7c6bb36625cf21fc122a2204fb8a26057af489
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Thai and Greek international braille with single-cell accented letters.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

Changes introduced in Beta 4:

• Fixed the visual layout of NVDA’s Braille Settings page.
• Fixed an issue causing text not related to shortcut keys to appear in the Commands Quick Reference.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 3:

• Updated LibLouis Braille translator to 3.31.0.
  • Fixed translation of numbers in Spanish Braille.
  • New Braille tables:
    • Thai grade 1
    • Greek international Braille (single-cell accented letters)
  • Renamed tables:
    • “Thai 6 dot” was renamed to “Thai grade 0” for consistency reasons.
    • The existing “Greek international braille” table was renamed to “Greek international braille (2-cell accented letters)” to clarify the distinction between the two Greek systems.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.
• NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.
• Updates to translations.

Beta3 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4beta3
  • SHA256 sum: b16ceaf9816e2211bd0b2d5633387aaa5b478b4b8db57db2ea65de913e733076
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Thai and Greek international braille with single-cell accented letters.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

Changes introduced in Beta 3:

• Updated LibLouis Braille translator to 3.31.0.
  • Fixed translation of numbers in Spanish Braille.
  • New Braille tables:
    • Thai grade 1
    • Greek international Braille (single-cell accented letters)
  • Renamed tables:
    • “Thai 6 dot” was renamed to “Thai grade 0” for consistency reasons.
    • The existing “Greek international braille” table was renamed to “Greek international braille (2-cell accented letters)” to clarify the distinction between the two Greek systems.
• Updates to translations.

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.
• NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.
• Updates to translations.

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.3.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

Highlights

This is a patch release to fix a bug with the automatic add-on update notification. When automatically checking for add-on updates, NVDA no longer freezes on poor connections.

Important Note:

Please note, after updating any software, it is a good idea to restart the computer. Restart by going to the Shutdown dialog, selecting “restart” and pressing ENTER. Updating software can change files which are in use. This can lead to instability and strange behaviour which is resolved by rebooting. This is the first thing to try if you do notice anything odd after updating.

Links

While downloading NVDA, please consider becoming a monthly donor. Contributions like yours help NV Access continue our important work.

We also have a range of training material in the NV Access Shop to help you increase your skills with NVDA. Start with the popular Basic Training for NVDA in electronic text, audio and braille. Save with the NVDA Productivity Bundle. This includes Basic Training, all our Microsoft Office training, and telephone support.

• Download NVDA 2024.3.1
  • SHA256 sum: 3be96327934ca09d54d92f37c2b385c96763170e33737c1730b5ed0330affdc7
• What’s new in NVDA 2024.3.1

Close-up photograph of NVDA logo in notification area.

Can you believe we are now 2/3 of the way through 2024! That being the case, I best not hold you up, let’s dive into the blog for this fortnight:

NVDA 2024.3 Released

NVDA 2024.4 Beta

SPEVI Conference 2025

Creating a Portable Copy

NVDA 2024.3

NVDA 2024.3 has been out for a fortnight now. How are you finding it? We’ve had lots of positive feedback so far. Being notified of add-on updates is a hugely popular feature. A number of In-Process readers have been testing out the mouse wheel scrolling commands covered last time around. It’s great to see people testing out new features! Even if you don’t end up using something, knowing it exists is really beneficial, as you never know when it might come in handy.

If you haven’t tried out NVDA 2024.3, please do read the download announcement here, where you can also download the latest version.

NVDA 2024.4 Beta

Hot on the heels of the release of NVDA 2024.3, we’re now into the beta cycle of NVDA 2024.4 with Beta 2 available. We will cover the features next time around, but for now, I wanted to highlight how the beta versions work. As you download and run or even install the beta, it behaves exactly like any production version of NVDA. There are, however, three main differences you should be aware of:

• There may be bugs. We do, of course, make every effort to ensure every build of NVDA is as stable as possible. Beta versions are still pre-release versions, however, so there may be bugs. If you use a beta version, do be familiar with how to get back to a stable version of NVDA should you need to.
• If you install a beta version of NVDA, it opts you into NVDA’s beta channel. NVDA will then only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. So, users who had installed the NVDA 2024.3 Release Candidate would NOT have been offered NVDA 2024.3 (the stable version) when it came out. But the NVDA 2024.3 RC 1 they were running is identical in all but version name to NVDA 2024.3 (stable). Users running the 2024.3 Release Candidate would, however, have been prompted to update to NVDA 2024.4 Beta 1 when it came out, without needing to read about it here in In-Process or on social media. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.
• Alpha and Beta versions of NVDA WILL beep when an error is written to the log. This is different to Release Candidate and stable builds of NVDA which do not by default. There is an option in the advanced settings to “Play a sound for logged errors”. This can be enabled for stable builds or only for alpha / beta builds. The reason for this is that alpha and beta versions are specifically aimed at testing. Although not every error causes NVDA to crash and become unusable, we DO want to know about them. We encourage anyone encountering errors (or anything not working as it should) in NVDA to ensure there is an issue on our GitHub issue tracker.

SPEVI Conference 2025

We are excited to share that NV Access will be at the SPEVI conference in January 2025!

The South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI) Inc. is the major professional association for educators of students with vision impairments in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region. SPEVI acts as the professional body in matters pertaining to the education and support of persons who are blind, have low vision, deaf-blindness, or additional disabilities. SPEVI membership is open to educators, professionals and parent groups who support and promote education for persons with vision impairment.

The SPEVI conference will be held in Brisbane from January 13-15. Full details at https://www.speviconference.net/

Creating a Portable Copy

One new change in NVDA 2024.3 is “By default, a new folder will be created when making a portable copy. A warning message will inform you if you try writing to a non-empty directory.”

This is a welcome change, but first, what is a portable copy and when might you use one?

One way of testing a beta build of NVDA if you don’t want to install it, is to create a portable copy of it. Creating a portable copy is also a great way to copy your NVDA settings from one machine to another. It can also enable running NVDA on a public machine you can’t get access to install NVDA on.

Portable copies of NVDA work just like installed copies. It loads quickly and you can save any settings you change. The User Guide lists the restrictions of portable copies. These include that you can’t have NVDA start automatically. Portable copies of NVDA will not work on secure screens (such as the logon screen) or programs with administrator privileges. You also can’t use audio ducking, touch screen input or features such as browse mode or speak typed characters in Windows Store apps.

To create a portable copy:

1. Press NVDA+n to open the NVDA menu.
2. Press t to open the tools menu.
3. Press c or down arrow to “Create portable copy” and press enter.
4. Type the folder to create the portable copy OR tab to the “Browse” button, press enter and use the file open dialog which appears to select a folder.
5. Press tab to “Create a new folder for the portable copy”. This is selected by default and will create a folder called “NVDA” under the folder specified. Press spacebar to UNCHECK this if you do NOT want NVDA to create a new folder.
6. Press tab to Copy current user configuration. This is not enabled by default. When enabled, it will copy the configuration from the currently running copy of NVDA to the new portable copy.
7. Press tab to “Start the new portable copy after creation”. This is not enabled by default. When enabled, it will automatically exit the current copy of NVDA and start the portable copy once created.
8. Press tab to the “Continue” button and press enter to start the creation.
9. While the new copy is created, a message reads “Please wait while a portable copy of NVDA is created”.
10. Once done NVDA reports “Successfully created a portable copy of NVDA at “ (and then lists the folder the new copy was created in).
11. Press enter to acknowledge the message. If you selected the option to start the new version, NVDA will exit and then the new copy will start.

The new option should greatly cut down the risk of creating a copy of NVDA into a folder which already has other files in it. If needed, you can rename the folder later or copy it onto a memory stick to use elsewhere. From the portable copy, you can “Install” NVDA on another machine. When you do that, there is an option to copy the configuration from the portable copy. Be sure to allow this if copying your configuration from one machine to another.

That’s all for this week. Please do install NVDA 2024.3, and if you want to test out what is coming soon in 2024.4, do try out the beta!

Beta2 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4beta2
  • SHA256 sum: fec011fd210e56d1f0c40f9b202d5e7cd516721a6282b981ae829ec4c49897d9
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

The minimum required version of Poedit that works with NVDA is now version 3.5.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.
• NVDA is no longer as sluggish when arrowing up and down through large files in VS Code.
• NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.
• Updates to translations.

Beta1 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version. The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.4beta1
  • SHA256 sum: 5a5952bc14ca1586db7a74a0b8d29726dea325babd128e9490978970a942de93
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

It’s here, NVDA 2024.3 has arrived! Let’s cover what’s new – but first, what else is in this week’s edition:

1. NVDA 2024.3 Released
2. Note for Beta and RC users
3. Thanks to SignPath
4. Mouse Scrolling Commands
5. A11y Camp

NVDA 2024.3 Released

NVDA 2024.3 is now available! There are lots of exciting features inside. Let’s have a look at the highlights:

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox / radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

Visit the NVDA 2024.3 Release Announcement for the full change log and download links.

Note for Beta and RC users

A quick note for our very valued users who test out Beta and Release Candidate builds. Firstly, thank you for all your help! It is your testing and feedback which helps ensure that releases like 2024.3 are as stable as possible. If you are on the “NVDA 2024.3 Release Candidate”, it will NOT prompt to update to the NVDA 2024.3 which was released today. This is intentional. The ONLY difference between the last released candidate and the final build is the version name (whether it has “rc1” in the name). The functionality itself is identical. Staying on this build means you will be notified when the first beta of NVDA 2024.4 is released. As a valued beta tester from NVDA 2024.3, we hope you will consider beta testing 2024.4 betas when they come out as well. If you do manually download NVDA 2024.3, that’s fine too. It will install normally over the top of the RC. The only difference is that those on NVDA 2024.3 (final) will need to download the first NVDA 2024.4 beta manually if desired.

Thanks to SignPath

As mentioned in July, NV Access is pleased to announce that we are now using a new code signing certificate for our builds. You may have noticed that when installing the 2024.3 update (or one of the earlier beta versions) that a warning from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen pops up. This is the result of the new code signing certificate (which are rotated every few years) being used, and nothing to worry about. The new certificate will continue to give our users peace of mind in the authenticity of NVDA builds. If you do get a warning, please choose “Run anyway” and you should not be bothered again in future.

To allow NVDA to install if you get the warning:

1. When the warning appears, press tab to “More info”
2. Press enter
3. Reading through the dialog, note that the publisher is listed as: “AU, Queensland, Camp Mountain, NV Access Limited, NV Access Limited”
4. To allow NVDA to run, press tab to “Run anyway”
5. Finally, press enter to run the snapshot

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to SignPath for their generous support in providing code signing services to many open source projects, including NVDA. Their contribution helps us maintain the security and integrity of our releases.

Mouse Scrolling Commands

NVDA 2024.3 includes unassigned commands to scroll the mouse wheel. I thought this might be useful to bring to the attention of low vision, magnification users. These commands provide an accurate keyboard way to scroll text to read visually. Testing the feature reminded me of another point I figured it was worth making. There is a reason not all commands have a gesture by default – it can be very hard to find suitable gestures. In this case, four gestures would be needed – to scroll the wheel up, down, left and right.

To try the command out, I setup NVDA+Windows+arrows for the four directions.

Note that scrolling the mouse wheel (either with the physical mouse or NVDA) generally does not trigger speech. The commands can be useful in cases such as some dynamically loaded web pages, or applications such as dism++ in order to load more items than originally displayed. And a reminder that the commands are unassigned by default. You will need to assign gestures to these if you wish to use them. Follow the steps in this In-Process article on input gestures to assign keystrokes to the commands. In the input gestures dialog, move to the “Filter” edit box and type “Scroll” to narrow the results.

A11y Camp

Finally, today, a shout out to are friends at A11y Camp who are preparing for this year’s conference. A11y Camp is “Australia’s premier annual conference on digital accessibility and inclusion, where people can share, learn, geek out, and connect with their peers and colleagues”. The conference will be at the Clarendon Auditorium, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on Wednesday 23rd October. Register at https://a11ycamp.com.au/

That’s all for this week. Do check out NVDA 2024.3 and let us know how you find it!

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.3 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

Highlights

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

Important Note:

Please note, after updating any software, it is a good idea to restart the computer. Restart by going to the Shutdown dialog, selecting “restart” and pressing ENTER. Updating software can change files which are in use. This can lead to instability and strange behaviour which is resolved by rebooting. This is the first thing to try if you do notice anything odd after updating.

You may have noticed that when installing the 2024.3 update (or one of the earlier beta versions) that a warning from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen pops up. This is the result of the new code signing certificate (which are rotated every few years) being used, and nothing to worry about. The new certificate will continue to give our users peace of mind in the authenticity of NVDA builds. If you do get a warning please choose “Run anyway” and you should not be bothered again in future. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to SignPath for their generous support in providing code signing services to many open source projects, including NVDA. Their contribution helps us maintain the security and integrity of our releases.

Links

While downloading NVDA, please consider becoming a monthly donor. Contributions like yours help NV Access continue our important work.

We also have a range of training material in the NV Access Shop to help you increase your skills with NVDA. Start with the popular Basic Training for NVDA in electronic text, audio and braille. Save with the NVDA Productivity Bundle. This includes Basic Training, all our Microsoft Office training, and telephone support.

• Download NVDA 2024.3
  • SHA256 sum: 24b836ce0439217f6e5555dda54e5fcc71631be6f2f9ddad4217b1e8ab12838b
• What’s new in NVDA 2024.3

Close-up photograph of NVDA logo in notification area.

The Release Candidate (RC) of NVDA 2024.3 is now available for download and testing. We encourage all users to download this RC and provide feedback. Unless any critical bugs are found, this will be identical to the final 2024.3 release. By installing the RC you will be opting into NVDA’s beta/RC channel, and will only receive update notifications for these builds. The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with latest NVDA version, identical to the latest stable build if no newer beta/RC is available. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Important Note:

• This release breaks compatibility with add-ons made for NVDA previousStableVersion and earlier.

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Links

• Download NVDA 2024.3rc1
  • SHA256 sum: 4a4e397c63f18ade171ca8c5a3547a0a222106b6c84a3964e7f472ade08c8920
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

Beta6 of NVDA 2024.3 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta channel will always keep you up to date with latest NVDA version, where the latest RC build will be identical to the latest stable build if no newer RC is available. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.3beta6
  • SHA256 sum: 22e0727f667c9f589a8d47856f0abcd040aaf8f65185b3bfead7f27bc46f2879
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

Changes introduced in Beta 5:

• Fixed bug with Unicode character normalization
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 5:

• Fixed bug editing links in text editors in Mozilla Firefox
• Fixed crash in Chrome when exiting NVDA or closing Chrome windows
• Fixed bug in resetting config to factory defaults
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 4:

• Fix reporting addresses in Modern Outlook To/CC/BCC fields
• Improved handling of errors when installing add-ons, fixed bug where failed add-on updates remove the installed add-on
• Minor fixes to improve updating a portable copy
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 3:

• Add-on update notifications no longer appear when running the NVDA installer
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• Fix for reading messages in Windows Mail
• Added International Phonetic Alphabet braille table
• Bug fix for audio output on a mono audio device
• Bug fixes for Unicode normalization
• Updates to translations

It’s August already, and we’re getting closer to a new release of NVDA. There’s a lot to cover this time around so let’s jump in and see what we’ve got:

1. NVDA Satisfaction survey 2024
2. Update to Basic Training for NVDA
3. Meet our newest board member: Emma Bennison
4. NVDA 2024.3 Beta 5
5. Thanks to Elston’s Better Future Fund
6. Resetting to factory defaults

NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2024

As in previous years, NV Access is pleased to invite you to complete the NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2024. As in previous years, this is a simple, three-question survey. The survey is open to NVDA users and testers around the world. We encourage everyone to complete the NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2024.

As with last year, the survey is on Google Forms, however, you do not need to have a Google account to submit the form.

Please do participate, and share with others, thank you!

Update to Basic Training for NVDA

“The Basic Training for NVDA” training module continues to be the cornerstone of NV Access’s NVDA training materials, and we have just released an update to this module. The update incorporates a whole new section on navigating and using the NVDA add-on store. This update is available in the NV Access store now and is a free update to anyone who has purchased Basic Training for NVDA. Log in to your account and go to “Downloads” to download the latest version.

A special thanks to Noelia and Cleverson for providing such extensive feedback on the update! As always, please blame any errors on me rather than our wonderful proofreaders, and of course, if you do find anything incorrect, please do let us know.

Meet our newest board member: Emma Bennison

Recently, Quentin sat down with Emma Bennison to find out a bit more about our newest board member. Emma outlined some of the biggest challenges facing blind users accessing technology, and how NVDA helps. Emma also explained how she came to be on the NV Access Board, and exactly what the Board does. Find the interview on our testimonials page, or on our YouTube channel.

NV Access is not a commercial company aiming to maximise return for shareholders. We are a registered charity in Australia; a not-for-profit organisation overseen by a Board of Directors. The directors ensure that our statement of purpose is at the heart of what we do: “The purpose of NV Access is to lower the economic and social barriers associated with accessing Information Technology for people who are Blind or Vision Impaired.” You can read the full statement on our corporate info page.

NVDA 2024.3 Beta 5

This week, we released Beta 5 of NVDA 2024.3. This update includes the following fixes and changes since Beta 4:

• Fixed bug editing links in text editors in Mozilla Firefox
• Fixed crash in Chrome when exiting NVDA or closing Chrome windows
• Fixed bug in resetting config to factory defaults
• Updates to translations

Read the full details and download from the NVDA 2024.3 Beta 5 announcement.

Thanks to Elston’s Better Future Fund

As a charity, we are always very grateful to our donors, both individuals and corporate donors. Elston’s “Better Future Fund” is their workplace giving program. The Better Future Fund allows employees to have a direct say in who they help and increase their impact through dollar matching. So firstly, a big thanks to Elston and to their generous employees who continue to support NV Access!

Does your employer have a workplace giving fund? If they do, please consider inquiring about using it to support NV Access. We have worked with a range of organisations and workplace giving programs. We would be happy to develop something works best for you and your workplace. If you are interested and need help or documentation from us, please do get in touch.

Resetting to factory defaults

One of the fixes in NVDA 2024.3 Beta 5 resolves a bug in resetting NVDA to factory defaults. I thought it was a good opportunity to cover what that is, and when you might use it.

We endeavour to make NVDA as robust and reliable as possible. For the most part, our users agree that we achieve this, although occasionally, you may still run into a problem with how NVDA is working. If the culprit is a particular setting, then changing that setting may fix it. But sometimes that isn’t so easy – what if you’ve set the speech rate way too slow (or turned on rate boost and it’s way too fast)? You might have changed the NVDA language or done something you aren’t even sure of.

In such a case, please do NOT restart NVDA. By default, when you exit NVDA, it saves your settings. So, restarting NVDA actually saves the change you are trying to revert.

Instead, press NVDA+control+r to reset to the most recently saved settings. This will generally be how NVDA was when you last started it. If that doesn’t fix the problem, pressing that keystroke three times quickly will reset NVDA to factory defaults. Or you can do the same task from NVDA’s menu:

1. Press NVDA+n then r to reset NVDA to the last saved settings
2. Press NVDA+n then f to reset NVDA to factory defaults

Remember your NVDA key is either INSERT or CAPS LOCK, and you press NVDA+n to open NVDA’s menu.

That’s all for this week. Please do try the latest beta, complete the satisfaction survey, or learn about the add-on store in the Basic Training for NVDA update. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks, and by then we’ll be at, or very close to, the stable release of NVDA 2024.3 – so please let us know of any issues you encounter with the beta as soon as possible.

Recently, Quentin sat down with Emma Bennison to find out a bit more about our newest board member. Emma outlined some of the biggest challenges facing blind users accessing technology, and how NVDA helps. Emma also explained how she came to be on the NV Access Board, and exactly what the Board does.

Below the YouTube link is a full transcript of the conversation.

Transcript:

Quentin (hereafter, Q) Today we are speaking with Emma Bennison well regarded as a leader in the blindness sector in Australia, and the newest member of the NV Access board, which we’ll come to. Welcome Emma!

Emma (hereafter, E): Thank you.

Q: I wonder if we could start, please with a little about who Emma Bennison is?

E: Ok sure, I’m a parent, I’m a disability advocate, have been for over 20 years, and I’ve held three CEO roles in disability-related organisations. Most recently, Blind Citizens Australia. And I’m currently the Chief Innovation Officer at Life Without Barriers, which is one of Australia’s largest community service providers.

Q: Wow, that is a very impressive CV. Now, you’ve been a leader in the blindness sector for a long time. What have you found are some of the biggest barriers to blind users being able to access technology?

E: Cost is one of the biggest ones, I think. There is often an assumption that people just have a spare couple of grand lying around. A lot of blind people in particular struggle with cost, costs of blindness. And it’s a particular issue I think because of the really high levels of unemployment in the blind community. We’ve got significant barriers to employment and so it’s a real challenge. I think the NDIS is having an impact on that, but the NDIS is not available to people over the age of sixty-five, and blindness is an aging disability. I think the statistic is something like 70% of people who are blind or vision impaired are over sixty-five, so it’s a real problem, and I think the other issue that I see a lot is just people not knowing how to use the technology that they’re given or that they have access to. And also given the mobile nature of our lives these days, the other big problem is that if people want to install a screen reader on a different computer, a lot of times they have to be authorised, and you can lose authorisation keys and all that kind of thing, so those are probably the biggest barriers.

Q: They are definitely themes we’ve also heard echoed in why people use and love NVDA. Now for those outside Australia, the NDIS is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it is a government funded program in Australia which helps cover the cost of supports, technology and assistance with daily living for anyone with any major disability, not only blindness. However, it does have limitations in eligibility.

E: That’s right, and sorry I should have made that clear. There is one other barrier actually in terms of technology use I think is really important to mention and that is the proliferation of inaccessible household technologies, particularly the building in of touch screens into things like washing machines, into cooking appliances, all those sorts of things. But that also has a flow-on effect outside the home, we have touch screen EFTPOS devices and kiosks in airports and all sorts of things, so I think that is a really significant barrier as well.

Q: Oh definitely, touch screens are everywhere these days. Touch screens can be made to be accessible, but if not considered from the outset it can take extra work, and cost and is often skipped and even for sighted users, touch screens tend to be more complex.

E: That’s right, and also if you’ve got an older person, they might not have vision loss, but if you’ve got an older person who’s trying to use a touch screen device, like an EFTPOS machine or even a phone, that can be really challenging, or someone with an acquired brain injury who maybe can’t recall the instructions. Those are some of the things people I think don’t necessarily think about or they definitely don’t think about when they’re designing technology.

Q: Oh, you’re absolutely right. Now one technology we did try to consider a range of users when we created, was NVDA. Emma when did you first hear about NVDA?

E: It was fairly early on in its development. And I remember thinking “Oh that’s such a good idea” like I loved the concept, right from the word go that people, particularly in developing countries, but even people who were unemployed or people who couldn’t afford a screen reader could have access. I just thought that was the best thing ever.

Q: Yes! That’s one of the reasons why we’re so passionate about NVDA as well. When did you switch over to using NVDA full time yourself?

E: So, I think it was about 2017. And I was changing jobs, I was going to Blind Citizens Australia, and I was having a lot of trouble with getting Jaws to authorise, I kept losing authorisation keys, you know it was just getting beyond irritating. And one of my colleagues who is also blind, said to me “look, NVDA is worth another look, he said it’s actually gotten way better it’s really good. He actually said to me he thought that in some cases it was preferable to some of the other screen readers. And I thought “Oh well, ok he knows what he’s talking about. I might give it another look” and I did, and I think one of the other things I had assumed, wrongly, was that I might have to learn a whole heap of new keystrokes, and it would be a big learning curve. But it wasn’t, and a lot of the keystrokes were actually identical to what I’d been using, and I just, once I started, I was just like this is brilliant, I’m not going back. and I thought I don’t know why everyone’s not using it, this is brilliant. And because of the organisation that I worked for; I got a lot of opportunity to talk to blind people as you can imagine. So, I just became a bit evangelical about NVDA, I’d tell anyone who would listen, that it was great and why on earth were people still worrying about trying to authorise Jaws. I went from one extreme to the other very quickly.

Fantastic, and we are very glad to have your support. And in fact, it goes beyond that, because you have recently joined the board of NV Access. So firstly, welcome!

E: Thank you.

Q: And secondly, how did that come about? What led up to you joining the Board?

E: I should say, I have known Jamie in particular, but also Mick as well, the founders of NV Access, I’ve known them for a very long time. I used to go to the National Braille Music Camp, which is where Mick and Jamie met. Actually, Jamie and I even learnt piano from the same piano teacher, so that is kind of a weird fun fact. So, I had known both of them, and I’d known about their work and just really, had a huge amount of admiration for the work they were doing for a very long time. And I’d always thought, maybe once I leave Blind Citizens Australia and I stop doing CEO work and I’ve got a bit more headspace. I’d really love to do something to help with this work. And so, I just kind of was just so excited when I got the opportunity to join the Board. I hadn’t necessarily thought I’d join the Board, I just thought maybe there is something I can do, I don’t know – but whatever it is, I want to do it! So, I was so excited, and still am, very excited. I just love it. I feel like I’ve definitely got governance skills that I can bring to it. But I feel like I’m just learning so much. It’s such a different organisation to any other that I’ve been on the Board of. I’ve been on lots of boards, and am on other boards, but I’m just enjoying so much getting to see how it works and just the incredible skill of the people who – every single person who works in the organisation, is just so skilled, and I just find that absolutely fantastic. I was going to say inspirational, but we can’t use that word in disability circles these days! But I do, I just find it really motivating and exciting just to be a part of. I feel like it gives a lot more to me than I give to it, so yeah, it’s fantastic, I’m really excited.

Q: That sounds really rewarding, thank you. Now NV Access is a registered charity in Australia, overseen by a Board of Directors – of which you are one – now for those who aren’t familiar with that structure. Can you explain please, how does it work, what does the Board of Directors do?

E: So, the Board of Directors is very much focussed on the strategic direction and governance of the organisation. So, governance being kind of having oversight of the organisation and making really key decisions about where the organisation might be heading from a strategic perspective. So we certainly don’t make decisions about day to day operations or day to day decisions, that’s the province of the staff, but in terms of where the organisation is going strategically, making sure that it has sufficient resources to do the work that it needs to do, you know looking at fundraising and development opportunities, those sorts of things. And then making sure that we are complying with legislative requirements and governance requirements and not for profit organisation requirements, those sorts of things. So those are probably the key activities that the board does, and so because it’s a small organisation we probably get our hands a little bit more dirty than what some other boards do. If you’re on the board of a larger organisation the division tends to be much more black and white, but yeah, we strive very much to stay in our lane and leave the actual day to day work of the organisation to the staff who are very smart people.

I think the other role that I see that I have as a director, and I think the others on the board would agree with me, is to be an ambassador for NVDA. Which as I say is not difficult for me because I’ve been doing it all the time. I feel like I have a real responsibility to make sure that wherever I can, whenever I have the opportunity, I’m sharing the work we do with people and making sure that people are aware of the work that we do and the product. That’s important too.

Q: Well, you’re doing an excellent job.

E: Thank you.

Q: Emma Bennison thank you very much for your time today.

E: Well thank you for that, I appreciate that opportunity.

Q: It has been a pleasure.

Beta5 of NVDA 2024.3 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds. The beta channel will always keep you up to date with latest NVDA version, where the latest RC build will be identical to the latest stable build if no newer RC is available. To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Links

• Download NVDA 2024.3beta5
  • SHA256 sum: 61856c2fe8b645e95c6cf6046ad575b7de9e6da3c8289eb3e34e5a45a146e03c
• What’s new in this release of NVDA
• Please report any issues on GitHub.

Highlights

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

Changes introduced in Beta 5:

• Fixed bug editing links in text editors in Mozilla Firefox
• Fixed crash in Chrome when exiting NVDA or closing Chrome windows
• Fixed bug in resetting config to factory defaults
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 4:

• Fix reporting addresses in Modern Outlook To/CC/BCC fields
• Improved handling of errors when installing add-ons, fixed bug where failed add-on updates remove the installed add-on
• Minor fixes to improve updating a portable copy
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 3:

• Add-on update notifications no longer appear when running the NVDA installer
• Updates to translations

Changes introduced in Beta 2:

• Fix for reading messages in Windows Mail
• Added International Phonetic Alphabet braille table
• Bug fix for audio output on a mono audio device
• Bug fixes for Unicode normalization
• Updates to translations

We’re getting closer to the release of NVDA 2024.3 with a new beta out this week. The table of contents in recent editions of the blog has been popular so far, so let’s start with that:

1. 2024.3 Beta 4
2. Add-on update notifications
3. Thank-you to our corporate donors
4. Jumping between paragraphs

2024.3 Beta 4

Since the last edition of In-Process, we’ve gone from Beta 1 to NVDA 2024.3 Beta 4. Since Beta 1, we’ve improved lots: Added translations, a new IPA Braille table, fixes for mail, audio, add-on handling, updating portable copies & Unicode normalisation.

But what is coming in NVDA 2024.3 itself? Why, I’m glad you asked, there are lots of exciting things in this version! 2024.3 highlights include: Notification of add-on updates, new Braille tables (including IPA), Unicode normalisation. Plus, the ubiquitous catch-all: “bug fixes and improvements”! Yes, all those miscellaneous things which aren’t quite big enough for their own bullet point. You can download the latest beta from the NVDA 2024.3 Beta 4 release announcement.

Add-on update notifications

One of the most anticipated features coming to NVDA 2024.3 is add-on updates. Joseph Lee’s add-on updater has been one of the most popular add-ons for NVDA. It notifies you when an updated version of any of your add-ons becomes available. We are incredibly pleased to now bring this functionality into NVDA’s add-on store itself. When NVDA starts, it checks for updates to any add-ons you have installed. If any updates are found, a dialog notifies you of the add-ons, the version info, and the channel (Stable, Beta or Dev). You can then Update all at once or open the add-on store instead if you would like finer control over which add-ons to update.

One insightful question a user asked us was: “Will it notify me of updates to disabled add-ons?” We are pleased to confirm that yes, the add-on store WILL notify you of updates to disabled add-ons.

Often you may have an add-on installed but disabled. This may be because it doesn’t work with the current version of NVDA or has a bug and you are waiting for an update. There is a new category in NVDA’s settings for the “Add-on store”. Currently, this has one option – whether to notify you of updates to add-ons.

Thank-you to our corporate donors

From the outset, NV Access was set up to ensure ongoing, free availability of NVDA to anyone who needs it. We are able to do so in part due to significant corporate donations from like-minded organisations. One such organisation is Intopia. From the Intopia.digital website:

“We’re leaders in digital accessibility and inclusion Intopia is the largest team of digital accessibility and equitable design experts in the Southern Hemisphere. We’re a proudly disability-led and female-led social enterprise passionate about creating an inclusive digital world.”

Passionate, inclusive, end-user led expertise in accessibility – all values which resonate very strongly with NV Access as well! We are very pleased to have such a great relationship with Intopia.

Do your organisation’s values sound similar? Are you looking for a way to give back which helps increase independence, employment and education opportunities for blind people around the world? We’d love to hear from you!

Jumping between paragraphs

Previously in this blog, we have covered the new synth settings commands and some of the unassigned gestures in NVDA 2024.2. There are a couple of the new quick navigation keys from NVDA 2024.2 which are already assigned, which we haven’t covered yet:

In NVDA 2024.2 and later, one new feature in browse mode is that you can press p to jump to the next text paragraph. Press shift+p to jump to the previous paragraph.

Let’s try it now: (Read this first, then follow the instructions):


1. Press control+home to jump to the top of the page
2. Press P several times to move through the first few paragraphs
3. Press shift+p to move backwards one paragraph at a time
4. Press L to jump back to this list of commands (Aside from the table of contents, this is the only list in today’s post)
5. Press P to move past the list to the next paragraph

That’s all for this week! Do let us know what you think of paragraph navigation. Do try out the new 2024.3 Beta, and we’ll be back in a couple of weeks as we get closer to the final release of NVDA 2024.3.