[blindlaw] Reading colored highlighted text with JAWS

[Jack Chen]

Hello all

Sorry for the delay.

There are two types of highlighting in documents that it is useful to read.
The first is track changes.  Track changes is a feature of Word that allows 
an editor to change a document while maintaining a history of the changes 
for the reviewer.  It consists of three types of changes -- insertions, 
deletions, and format changes.
The reviewer can specify how he wishes track changes to appear on his 
screen.  The options can be found in tools -> track changes.  In most 
versions of Word, the three types of changes can appear with text in a 
specific color and in a special font.
Jaws can be made to read such changes by going to the configuration manager 
(jaws key + 6).  Go to the "set options" menu and then to Speech Options. 
There are a number of spoken profiles you can choose from.  The "classic" 
profile does not speak any of the color or format changes.  Other profiles 
speak with different voices for different formatting and colors.  I 
personally find the different voices distracting and just like Jaws to tell 
me exactly what is there.  Therefore, I use the "attributes and formatting" 
profile.  Press return on this option and hit CTRL+S to save the profile. 
Exit the configuration manager.
In Word, I typically turn off showing the changes in different colors 
because it takes Jaws time to read the color.  I set insertions to show in 
underline and deletions to show in strike through.  The tricky part is that 
documents often have underlining and strike through that isn't track 
changes.  Jaws will read these just the same.
To use track changes, you can go to next change, accept the change, or 
reject the change.  These can be set up as short cut keys (ask someone who 
knows how to use Word well).
If you land on a piece of underlined or strike through text, you can tell if 
it is a change by going to the option to accept/reject the change and seeing 
if it allows you to accept or reject.  If the underlined or stricken through 
text is not a track change, then the option will be grayed out.
The final thing to note is that you want to turn off insertions and 
deletions shown in balloons.  This option should be in the track changes 
dialogue where you set how the changes will be displayed.

For highlighting and colors that are not track changes, the different speech 
profiles will read the formatting to you.  If you want to know the 
formatting of a particular character that you are on, jaws key + f will 
speak the formatting.  Jaws key + 5 will read the color of the text as well 
as the background.  I know there is a way to read all text of a particular 
color/formatting type in Jaws, but I haven't found it very intuitive or easy 
to use.


I hope this helps.

Jack

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Reading colored highlighted text with JAWS


> Craig,
>
> Can you use the Comments commands to read comments or use track changes?
> You may not be able to catch the color of these, but ultimately, the 
> content
> is more important than the color, right?  Let me know if you need 
> assistance
> with either of these functions, though the stand-by help commands are
> useful.--Joe Orozco
>
> "Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is
> what we do, what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and
> what we dare to imagine."--Senator Paul Wellstone
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Craig Borne" <cjborne at comcast.net>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 9:17 AM
> Subject: [blindlaw] Reading colored highlighted text with JAWS
>
>
>> Hello list,
>>
>> There is an attorney who consistently sends a marked up document back to
>> me
>> with his comments highlighted in red or pink or whatever color.
>>
>> Is there a way I can have JAWS read the highlighted color with another
>> voice
>> or somehow differentiate the text while reviewing the document?  I want 
>> to
>> avoid having someone sit down with me to review these changes.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>
>> Craig Borne
>>
>> Baltimore, Maryland
>>
>> cjborne at comcast.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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