Narrator?

Category: Geeks r Us

Post 1 by asdfghjkl (Account disabled) on Wednesday, 12-Oct-2005 13:33:13

Hi, I'm on my computer at school trying to teach myself how to use Narrator. I will have JAWS soon, but for now I have to adapt. Is there any way I could read text, or does it only read links, menus, edit boxes, etc? PlThanks guys, sorry if i made a bunch of typos, LOL!!

Post 2 by laced-unlaced (Account disabled) on Wednesday, 12-Oct-2005 13:35:38

no! as far as i know narator will only read lists and things but saying that i'm sure there's a way to make it read text!

Post 3 by Witchcraft (Account disabled) on Wednesday, 12-Oct-2005 13:45:30

I've tried; my university wanted me to use it, and it will not read text. At least no matter what I did it wouldn't. Try a demo of Jaws? That is if you can get them to let you install it; that gave me a battle too.

Post 4 by asdfghjkl (Account disabled) on Wednesday, 12-Oct-2005 19:00:39

Oh, we have the full version, but... the lady who was supposed to help us install stuff hasn't come yet. Thanks for the feedback, though.

Post 5 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 12-Oct-2005 23:43:50

I was listening to a show on main menu, where a microsoft spokeswoman was talking about microsofts commitment to accessibility, and someone told her that if they need to reinstall or install xp, narrator needs to come up talking automatically. She said you could get narrator to come up by pressing windows key+u. I wonder, if for some reason, your computer couldn't start, and jaws can't start unless windows loads first, could you press windows key u, and start narrator that way? Then you could hopefully use narrator to read the on screen message and get an idea why the computer won't start.
wonderwoman

Post 6 by Witchcraft (Account disabled) on Thursday, 13-Oct-2005 4:59:56

Far as I can figure Narrator won't run until Windows is started, and I can tell you easily why narrator isn't more accessible. Plain and simple, FS and others threatened a law suit should MS make narrator to usable...

Post 7 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 13-Oct-2005 20:16:08

well, that's almost dictatorship, just because fs sales would drop. On a blind line show a few years back, Ted Henter stated that microsoft wouldn't want to make a screen reader anyway, because they wouldn't want blind people calling them all the time for tech support. whether or not this is true, I don't know. But fs want us dependent on them, for one thing, they charge a bundle for the upgrades you pass by, which in my opinion isn't fair, and mostly a money racket.
wonderwoman

Post 8 by Witchcraft (Account disabled) on Friday, 14-Oct-2005 7:57:52

MS did seriously consider making Narator more accessible and benificial for the blind, and as I said, FS and other screen reading software companies threatened them with a suit if they did.

Post 9 by asdfghjkl (Account disabled) on Friday, 14-Oct-2005 20:03:33

That's retarded... but whatever. I'd like to see PulseData make a screenreader and put Freedom Science Fiction, I could say worse, LOL, out of business. Hahahaha! Who's with me on that one? And I do think Narrator sucks, no it starts up fine, but was just wondering if it read text...guess not. Ah, well. Thanks for y'all's help. Mel

Post 10 by ArtRock1224 (move over school!) on Sunday, 16-Oct-2005 16:09:10

Narator works with notepad.

Post 11 by Twinklestar09 (I've now got the bronze prolific poster award! now going for the silver award!) on Sunday, 16-Oct-2005 16:57:14

It also works good with Windows Messenger, in the basic points I guess. It actually reads the whole screen name's phrases (when a user name is too long for JAWS to read it I mean). And it works with sending and reading the messages. And of course, the menus.

Post 12 by rdfreak (THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE-BLUE KANGA-KICKIN AUSIE) on Sunday, 16-Oct-2005 21:48:22

that is stupid of FS to do this. I would absolutely love to even be able to install windows, say, on my own. how good would that be? I mean that doesn't make sense since narrator is part of windows but wouldn't it be good if windows had a talking install! :)

Post 13 by drummerguy425 (Veteran Zoner) on Monday, 17-Oct-2005 1:57:20

well as far as I know and am concerned mel, narrator does not read text, and I would like for pulse data to run there asses out of business. they make the worst produckts on the planet earth!

Post 14 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 17-Oct-2005 20:56:04

What I don't like is their sma aggrement. At first, I thought you payed $200 if you didn't purchase an sma. one of the sales girls tried a few years ago to get me to purchase an sma, telling me if I didn't, I'd have to pay $200 every time I upgraded. When I told her I wasn't going to upgrade every time one came along, she said, uh huh, in a snooty tone. I found out from someone on for the people that you had to pay for all the upgrades you missed, when you did decide to upgrade. As far as it looks, jaws version doesn't have any new features which will benefit me very much, since most of the enhancements are for ms word, which I don't have, though when qvc were selling their dell computers, they had microsoft works come with it as standard, so I guess that means ms word is included. I've only just been using word pad, because it's the word processor that came with the computer, but I guess word is going to be somewhat different from wordpad. So most of the enhancements seem to be for things I don't use, but I almost have to keep the sma up, even if 7 and 8 don't have anything helpful for me, just in case version 9 might have some more quick navigation keys. And another thing I don't like, with the sma, you don't get an updated braille reference to include the new keystrokes.
wonderwoman