Not Just Kindles
With prices starting below the $100 mark, it's a great time to buy an ebook reader. But before you settle on a single device, you have some decisions to make. As you can see, Amazon's Kindle line makes up the bulk of our top picks, and for many people will be the perfect choice. But it isn't the only choice. Here's what you should consider when shopping.
- This topic assumes that you are using the built-in Mac OS screen reader, VoiceOver. To learn more about using VoiceOver, go to VoiceOver Getting Started Guide. In this topic. Microsoft wants to provide the best possible experience for all our customers.
- Bundled with recent versions of Windows, this basic screen reader makes use of MSAA. Microsurf: Microsurf: All that run Chrome browser Free Microsurf is a screen reader for Chrome NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) NonVisual Desktop Access project Windows Free and open source (GPL2) Programmed and scriptable in Python.
- VoiceOver on Mac -- Desktops and Laptops. The best screen reader that I have found for this application is VoiceOver, and best of all it comes free on all Mac computers (OS 10.4 or higher). If a person or a school has Macs, the cost to provide a screen reader would be zero.
What Screen Type and How Big?
Basic ebook readers use monochrome, E Ink screens to display text. E Ink looks a lot like paper, and it's easy on your eyes when reading for long periods. On the least expensive models, it's not backlit, so you'll need light to see the text, just as you would with a printed book. But most ebook readers now include edge lighting that lets you see in the dark. With each model, you can vary the intensity of the brightness from barely there to flashlight-bright. On the lowest settings, you can read in the dark while your partner sleeps peacefully next to you.
If you're looking for the best screen capture software for Mac or Windows, you'll see that there are many options. In this video I give you a quick review of the screen capture programs that I. Best Mac OS X Screen Reader: Apple VoiceOver Also available on iOS, VoiceOver is Apple’s free screen-reading solution made for Mac OS X, and it’s probably one of the best on this list. In addition to having very deep, OS-level integration, VoiceOver also has features like braille support and functions tailored specifically to Mac hardware like a “Rotor” function mapped to the touchpad and gestures. The Best eReaders of 2018 Whether you're considering joining the digital book revolution, or just want a new device to replace an older one, here are the best ebook readers on the market today.
In all cases, E Ink is much easier to read in bright sunlight, while color touch screens on tablets tend to wash out, and their glossy displays can show distracting reflections.
The industry seems to have settled on six inches as the optimal display size for E Ink readers; this is what you'll find on most of Amazon's Kindles, for example. There are exceptions, though: Kobo's Forma is significantly larger, at 8 inches. And if it's clarity you're after, you're in luck: 300 pixels per inch seems to be the new standard among most recent ebook readers (aside from the base model Kindle).
Manufacturers are also improving the quality of these E Ink displays. A few years ago, page refreshes were sluggish, the entire screen flashed black with each page turn, and some early ebook readers had problems with text contrast, which made for difficult reading. That's all history. The latest readers have crisp, clear text, and employ caching schemes that almost never refresh the full page; most of the time, only the letters fade out and back in again. The page refreshes themselves are much faster than before.
Meanwhile, touch screens have an innate advantage: On-screen keyboards make it easy to take notes or run searches within the text of your books. Also, maneuvering a massive online bookstore on a device with a touch screen is a lot easier.
So E Ink is great for reading books, but tablet screens offer a bevy of other benefits. Their color screens mean you can read much more than books: magazines and comic books are just two examples. Best of all, even lower-cost tablets like the Fire 7 can browse the web, stream video from Netflix, Hulu or other sources, play music, and run apps.
Will You Read on the Beach?
If you like to read in the bath, by the pool, or on the beach, you might want to consider buying a waterproof ebook reader. You have a few options. The Amazon Kindle Oasis, the latest Kindle Paperwhite, the Kobo Forma, and the Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 are all rated to withstand submersion in water to some degree. The Kindle Oasis even has page turn buttons so you can easily flip between pages when your hands are wet.
Best Screen Reader For Windows 10
What Kind of Wireless Connection Do You Need?
An always-on cellular radio lets you buy and download books from anywhere, over the air, for free (aside from the cost of the book itself, of course). Most devices offer Wi-Fi as the base level wireless connection—at a much lower cost—with 3G cellular data only available as part of a more-expensive model.
As long as you don't mind waiting until you're at home or near a hotspot to shop for new books, Wi-Fi should work for you. A select few may still prefer to pony up for 3G to buy a new book while, say, on a long train trip, or lounging at the beach.
Internal storage capacity is not much of a concern. Most every ebook reader you can buy today can store more than 1,000 books, with some offering room for thousands more titles. And if you have more books than that, each of the major vendors offers cloud storage, letting you download books to your device whenever you need them, assuming you're connected to Wi-Fi hotspot (or anywhere you have a cell signal, if you have a 3G-capable model).
How About the Books?
This is where things get a little complex, so bear with us for a moment. There's no single universal ebook format; essentially, when you choose an ebook reader, you're making a decision up front as to which ecosystem you'll support.
With free, public domain books, you have some more flexibility, but it's actually more complicated. For example, Google offers over a million free books in the popular, open ePub format, which many public libraries now use for lending books. However, Kindles don't support ePub. Amazon launched its own public library lending tie-in, which differs on a branch-to-branch basis. Amazon also has the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, which lets you borrow a book a month from a selection of over one million titles, but only if you pay $99 a year for the Amazon Prime service. It also gives you unlimited access to Amazon's Prime Reading library.
To make things even murkier, the ebook stores themselves aren't all the same. Book selection, size, and pricing varies from store to store. The best way through this thicket of digital underbrush is to spend a little time browsing ebook stores before you commit to a device. You can access Amazon's, Barnes & Noble's, and Kobo's ebook stores online to see which carries most of the books, magazines, and newspapers you want to read. Or, if you're planning to borrow ebooks from the library, check your local branch to see what format is in use, and then make sure the reader you want supports it. If it uses Overdrive, Kobo is your best bet.
For more, see How to Get Free (or Cheap) New Ebooks and How to Put Free Ebooks on Your Amazon Kindle. And for an in-depth comparison of supported formats across various ebook readers, check out Wikipedia.
What About Ebook Apps?
One saving grace is that many of the major ebook reader vendors have developed an entire ecosystem of apps around their chosen format. For example, you can start reading a book on your Kindle Paperwhite at home; then, while waiting in line at the grocery store, you can fire up your iPhone's Kindle app and pick up exactly where you left off in the same book, but on your phone.
The size of the app ecosystem varies by format. The Apple iPad and iPhone both run iBooks, a flexible app that looks great, but doesn't have quite the same book selection as Amazon for digital books. Amazon also makes iPad apps, along with versions for iPhone, Android, and other devices; in addition it has a Cloud Reader that works on the iPad with a direct link to the Kindle Store, and several vendors also make PC and Mac apps.
In short, if you plan to read digital books on multiple gadgets, be sure to read our product reviews, and note each manufacturer's list of supported devices.
How Much Do You Want to Spend?
This is one place where there's nothing but good news: Prices have fallen considerably across the board. While tablets are mostly a separate category of consumer electronics—with higher prices—you've got plenty of good options for less than $200, all of which are still great for reading. And on the higher end, Amazon's Kindle Oasis is expensive, but it's a good buy for dedicated bookworms.
With that in mind, these are our favorite dedicated ebook readers you can buy today. If you're getting a Paperwhite, check out our 13 Paperwhite Tips Every Reader Needs to Know. And if you'd rather do your reading on a color screen, head over to our top tablet picks.
Best eReaders Featured in This Roundup:
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2018) Review
MSRP: $129.99Pros: Waterproof. Flat front is easy to clean. Plays audiobooks over Bluetooth. Long battery life.Cons: Doesn't support Immersion Reading.Bottom Line: For $130, the waterproof Kindle Paperwhite offers more for your money than any other ebook reader on the market.Read ReviewKobo Clara HD Review
MSRP: $129.99Pros: Leading public library support. Excellent native file format support. Small and light. Color-changing front light.Cons: Not waterproof.Bottom Line: The Kobo Clara HD is the best all-around e-reader for anyone who borrows books from public libraries.Read ReviewAmazon Kindle Oasis (2019) Review
MSRP: $249.99Pros: Adjustable backlight. Slim, striking design. Bright, crisp screen. Waterproof.Cons: Expensive. Clunky Overdrive compatibility.Bottom Line: The 2019 edition of the slim, waterproof Amazon Kindle Oasis adds a warmth-adjustable backlight for less eye strain, thought most people will be just fine spending nearly half the price on the Paperwhite.Read ReviewAmazon Kindle (2019) Review
MSRP: $89.99Pros: Front light. Similar performance to other Kindles.Cons: Not waterproof. Relatively low-resolution screen. Dated design.Bottom Line: The latest low-cost Kindle improves night reading with its front light, but the slightly more expensive Paperwhite offers better overall value for most readers.Read ReviewBarnes & Noble Nook GlowLight 3 Review
MSRP: $119.99Pros: Sharp screen. Color-changing front light goes from blue to yellow. Physical page turn buttons. ePub support.Cons: Sluggish UI. Limited store selection. Awkward for library books.Bottom Line: The Barnes & Noble Nook GlowLight 3 illuminates your reading with a warm, color-changing light, but can't get past Amazon's superior ebook selection.Read ReviewKobo Forma Review
MSRP: $279.99Pros: Big screen is great for large type and manga. Light for its size. Waterproof. Public library integration. Handles many file formats.Cons: Expensive. Not pocketable. Materials don't feel premium.Bottom Line: Kobo's top-of-the-line ebook reader is great if you feel other options are too cramped, but it's more device than most people need.Read ReviewBarnes & Noble Nook GlowLight Plus (2019) Review
MSRP: $199.99Pros: Big screen. Bright, color-changing front light. Waterproof.Cons: Poor software. Questionable long-term support.Bottom Line: Barnes & Noble's Nook GlowLight Plus ebook reader has great hardware for the price, but its software and services are limited and buggy.Read Review
Screen readers are designed to do one thing: read what’s on the screen. That’s why they call them screen readers, right? You would think that screen reader software would have perfected the art of reading text by now, because that was the whole reason why screen readers were invented. If there’s one thing a screen reader ought to do really well, it’s read what’s on the screen.
Unfortunately, screen readers don’t always read what’s on the screen. Sometimes that’s OK, but sometimes that’s really bad. If a screen reader fails to read important text, the user will fail to understand it. It’s not the user’s fault, and it’s usually not the web developer’s fault either. These are problems with the screen reader software itself. It’s high time for screen reader programmers to fix these problems, and to get some consistency across brands of screen readers, because right now it’s kind of a mess… and I’m just talking about text, typographic symbols, and static HTML here: the things that screen readers are supposed to excel at reading.
- Part 1 of this series focuses on the way screen readers read (or don’t read) punctuation and typographic symbols.
- Part 2 will focus on the problems with inline semantic markup.
- Part 3 will focus on problems with pronunciation, including common content — like telephone numbers, dates, and abbreviations — as well as uncommon or new words, or words with more than one possible pronunciation.
You Can’t Count on Screen Readers to Read Most Punctuation or Typographic Symbols
The way screen readers treat punctuation is incredibly inconsistent from one screen reader to another, and there isn’t a single screen reader on the market that can reliably handle the full set of punctuation marks and typographical symbols that you might want to use. If you type an HTML document using all the punctuation marks available on your keyboard and listen to a screen reader read the document in a web browser, you’ll hear only some of the punctuation and characters read aloud to you. If you use HTML entities or other special characters, you’ll hear even less.
This is partly (but not entirely) by design. Screen reader manufacturers have understandably decided that most users don’t need to hear every comma, period, and apostrophe in a document. Screen readers will pause at commas rather than say “comma,” and screen readers will say “don’t” rather than say “don apostrophe t.” Those are reasonable decisions. But every screen reader has major flaws in reading some aspect of typographical symbols.
Here’s a sample of some of the problems:
- The NVDA screen reader, for instance, doesn’t read hardly any typographical symbols at all in its default configuration, making common symbols like asterisks and plus symbols essentially useless to NVDA users. This means web developers can’t use an asterisk to denote a required field on a form, unless they supplement the asterisk with some other NVDA-friendly method.
- Similarly, NVDA ignores the plus and equals symbols. It says “five two seven” when it should say “five plus two equals seven,” making it hard — or impossible — to write basic math expressions.
- JAWS reads the plus symbol correctly, but not the minus symbol. Jaws incorrectly says “five dash two” when it should say “five minus two,” even when using the HTML entity − (not a regular dash) to specify the minus symbol.
- JAWS also reads the “less than or equal to” symbol incorrectly. JAWS says “equals,” which is wrong. Between NVDA and JAWS, web authors who want to write even the most basic of arithmetic expressions — one plus one, or one minus one, for example — can’t count on screen readers to read them right. That’s a serious limitation.
- On the Mac side, VoiceOver doesn’t inform users about quotation marks, parentheses, or dashes, making it so users don’t know when quotation or parenthetical phrases begin or end. To its credit, VoiceOver does pause briefly for these elements, but users won’t know the difference between a dash, parentheses, or a quotation, because all pauses sound the same, even though the reasons for the pauses are all different, and should convey different semantic meanings.
These are just some of the examples of where things can go wrong when trying to use basic punctuation or typographic symbols to communicate on the web. These are significant flaws in the most basic of screen reader functions: reading what’s on the screen. There is too much potential for screen readers to miss out on the information that is right there in front of them. I’m not talking about anything complicated here. I’m talking about the text and symbols right there on your keyboard, and the ones available in HTML entities and other standard character sets.
It’s time for screen reader manufacturers to step up to the plate and design software that does a better job of actually reading what’s on the screen
User Verbosity Preferences versus Default Settings
Screen readers have verbosity settings that let users choose how much punctuation to hear. I’m not saying to take away user preferences. Let users choose their own verbosity level, but the default level needs to be high enough for average users to get the information communicated in typical web content by the authors. Authors need to know that they can trust screen readers to read the text that the authors write, and right now, author’s can’t trust screen readers to do that.
There are certainly reasons for users to ignore some kinds of punctuation under some circumstances. It would be annoying to most users to hear every single comma or period in every sentence sentence, for example. And sometimes users would rather hear a pause than hear every opening and closing parenthesis. That’s understandable. By pausing instead of reading all punctuation, screen readers sound more natural and human-like, and that can be a good thing.
But when the punctuation or typographic symbols convey important meaning, users need to be able to hear the punctuation and symbols, or the meaning will be lost. At the extreme end, blind web developers probably need to hear all the punctuation when reading HTML or JavaScript code, for example. They may want to toggle the verbosity setting to “all punctuation” when reading code, and use a less verbose mode for reading prose. There’s no need to force a high verbosity level on all users.
Even so, the verbosity probably should not be set so low by default that the screen reader can’t even read a URL correctly (for example, by not reading the colon or slashes), or convey even the most basic punctuation to readers. NVDA’s settings, in particular, are so sparse that users hear almost no punctuation or symbols at all. That doesn’t seem right, and it leaves authors with a no-win choice of either stripping the document of nearly all punctuation for all users, or writing out everything in words instead of punctuation (like “1 plus 1 equals 2” instead of “1+1=2”), or simply saying “I don’t care what the screen reader does. It should read the text, but it doesn’t. It’s not my fault. I’m not responsible, because I did my part by putting the text in there.”
Screen Reader Flaws Breed Apathy
Screen reader flaws breed apathy among web developers and content writers. Such apathy is counter-productive to the goal of creating an accessible web. Too many people will just assume that screen readers are always a little bit broken, and not bother to investigate workarounds, especially for the simplest tasks, like reading the text and punctuation on the screen. No one should have to wonder if a screen reader will read text.
Testing How Screen Readers Read Typographical Symbols
I knew that screen readers were inconsistent in the way they handled typographical symbols, but I didn’t know all of the intricate details of exactly what they did or didn’t read, so I set up some tests.
Versions Tested:
- NVDA 2013.3, tested with Firefox 26.0 on Windows 7
- JAWS 15.0.4203, tested with Internet Explorer 9.0.23 on Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8
- VoiceOver OSX 10.9.1, tested with Safari 7.0 (9537.71)
In all cases, the screen reader language was set to English. The doctype was HTML 5. The character encoding was UTF-8.
![Reader Reader](https://cdn.appstorm.net/mac.appstorm.net/files/2011/01/scaled.screen-capture-7.png)
I didn’t test every possible typographical character possible; not even close. I chose from among the more common characters; characters that most English-speaking authors would expect screen readers to get right. A more comprehensive test would involve different languages, all the characters in UTF-8, and all the HTML entities. I’m not going to be that thorough. I admit I sympathize with screen reader manufacturers when considering the scale of the task once you consider all possible character sets, but with just this limited set of common characters, the results are still disappointing.
Findings:
JAWS Bugs
First of all, it’s time to fix the bugs, in JAWS in particular. How is it that there are still bugs in screen reader software for reading basic text and typographical symbols? That’s something screen readers should have perfected long, long ago.
Symbol | Markup | JAWS says | JAWS should say |
---|---|---|---|
? | − | “dash” | minus |
? | ≤ | “equals” | less than or equal to |
? | ≥ | “equals” | greater than or equal to |
? | ≈ | “tilde” | approximately equals |
? | ≠ | “question mark” | not equals |
Safe Characters (all screen readers read the characters out loud):
If you need the typographical symbols to be read out loud explicitly, of the 91 symbols tested, the only “safe” symbols to use across all screen readers tested in their default configurations are these 17:
- @ (the at symbol)
- & (ampersand, written either as & or & in the markup)
- / (slash)
- © (copyright, written as ©)
- ® (registered, written as ®)
- ™ (trademark, written as ™)
- ¶ (paragraph, written as ¶)
- • (bullet, written as •)
- $ (dollar)
- € (Euro, written as €)
- £ (British pound, written as £)
- ¥ (Yen, written as ¥)
- % (percent)
- ½ (one half, written as ½)
- ¼ (one fourth, written as ¼)
- ¾ (three fourths, written as ¾)
- ° (degrees, written as °)
Everything else fails in at least one of the three screen readers tested. When I say it “fails,” I mean that the symbol itself isn’t read out loud. Sometimes that’s OK, but often it is not OK.
Safe, But Sometimes Unspoken Characters (often accompanied by a pause or voice inflection)
Just to be clear: just because a screen reader doesn’t read something out loud doesn’t always mean you can’t use it. It just means that the meaning of that symbol will not be communicated explicitly. If the meaning of the symbol is essential to your message, be very cautious in how you use the symbols. If the meaning of a symbol is only tangential or not essential to the message, you have a bit more freedom.
You can use such punctuation as periods, commas, semi-colons, colons, parentheses, brackets, quotation marks, dashes, exclamation points, question marks and some others. JAWS is the most likely of the screen readers to read these kinds of punctuation marks. NVDA is the least likely. Across all three screen readers, most of these punctuation marks will generate pauses, or voice inflections in the case of exclamation marks and question marks. Just don’t expect the screen reader to actually read most of these punctuation marks themselves out loud unless the user pauses and listens character by character, or unless the user changes the default settings of the screen reader.
To give a specific example, if you’re OK with the user simply hearing a pause at the beginning and end of a quotation, you’ll be fine. But if you need the user to know that the reason for the pause is because there are quotation marks, you’re out of luck in all screen readers except JAWS.
Unread Characters (meaning that at least one screen reader will not read the character out loud):
- ~ (tilde)
- ? (backtick)
- ! (exclamation mark)
- ¡ (inverted exclamation mark, written as ¡)
- # (pound sign)
- ^ (caret)
- * (asterisk)
- ( (left parenthesis)
- ) (right parenthesis)
- – (dash)
- — (m dash, written as —)
- — (double dash)
- – (n dash, written as –)
- _ (underscore)
- , (comma)
- . (period)
- … (pseudo ellipses, three periods)
- … (ellipses, written as …)
- (backslash)
- | (vertical bar)
- ? (question mark)
- ¿ (inverted question mark, written as ¿)
- ; (semi-colon)
- : (colon)
- ” (quotation mark)
- ” (quotation mark, written as ")
- ” (left double quotation mark, written as “)
- “ (right double quotation mark, written as ”)
- « (left double angle bracket, written as «)
- »; (right double angle bracket, written as »)
- ‹ (left single angle bracket, written as ‹)
- › (right single angle bracket, written as ›)
- ‘ (single quote, or apostrophe)
- ’ (right single quote, written as ’)
- ‘ (left single quote, written as ‘)
- { (left brace)
- } (right brace)
- [ (left bracket)
- ] (right bracket)
- § (section, written as §)
- · (small bullet, written as ·)
- † (dagger, written as †)
- ‡ (double dagger, written as ‡)
- ? (right arrow, written as →)
- ? (left arrow, written as ←)
- ? (up arrow, written as ↑)
- ? (down arrow, written as ↓)
- ? (horizontal arrow, written as ↔)
- ? (left double arrow, written as ⇐)
- ? (right double arrow, written as ⇒)
- ? (up double arrow, written as ⇑)
- ? (down double arrow, written as ⇓)
- ? (horizontal double arrow, written as ⇔)
- ? (spades, written as ♠)
- ? (clubs, written as ♣)
- ? (hearts, written as ♥)
- ? (diamonds, written as ♦)
- + (plus)
- – (minus, written as −)
- ± (plus or minus, written as ±)
- ÷ (divided by, written as ÷)
- × (multiplied by, written as ×)
- = (equals)
- ? (not equals, written as ≠)
- ? (approximately equals, written as ≈)
- ‰ (per mil, written as ‰)
- < (less than, written as <)
- > (greater than, written as >)
- ? (less than or equal to, written as ≤)
- ? (greater than or equal to, written as ≥)
- ? (prime, written as ′)
- ? (double prime, written as ″)
- ? (sum, written as ∑)
The least verbose of the screen readers tested was NVDA, by a large margin. If not for NVDA, the number of characters read out loud would be much higher. JAWS and VoiceOver have problems of their own though.
Here are the detailed tables showing which symbols were, or weren’t read by which screen readers.
Symbol | The character by itself | In Context | JAWS 15 | NVDA | VoiceOver |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
tilde | ~ | https:// www.website.com/ ~user | By itself: “tilde” In context: “H T T P colon slash slash website dot com slash tilde user” | By itself: nothing In context: “H T T P slash slash website dot com slash user” (NVDA does NOT mention the tilde or the colon.) | By itself: “tilde” In context: “H T T P slash slash website dot com slash tilde user” (VoiceOver reads the tilde, but not the colon) |
backtick mark | ? | &id=?1? | By itself: “grave” (the “a” is pronounced with an “ah” sound, like the “a” in “bravo”) In context: “and I D equals grave one grave” | By itself: nothing In context: “and I D one” (NVDA does NOT pronounce the tick mark or the equals sign.) | By itself: “accent” In context: “and I D equals one” (VoiceOver does NOT read the backtick.) |
exclamation mark | ! | This is exciting! This is exciting. | By itself: “exclaim” In context: JAWS does not change voice inflection at all. | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA changes the inflection very slightly (almost imperceptibly) when there is an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. | By itself: “exclaim” In context: Nothing. VoiceOver does not change voice inflection at all when a sentence ends in an exclamation mark. |
inverted exclamation mark, typed as ¡ | ¡ | Intersante. ¡Ay caramba! Intersante. Ay caramba. | By itself: “inverted exclaim” In context: JAWS changes the inflection of the last word, but does not mention the inverted exclamation mark at the beginning. | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA reads the exclamation with a different inflection, but does not mention the inverted exclamation mark at the beginning. | By itself: “inverted exclamation mark” In context: VoiceOver does NOT change voice inflection. (It also does NOT change language, even though lang=”es” is added to the td tag. |
at symbol | @ | I have a message for @paul | By itself: “at” In context: “I have a message for at Paul” (But JAWS slurs the “at” and “Paul” together, so people might easily miss the “at”) | By itself: “at” In context: “I have a message for at Paul” | By itself: “at” In context: “I have a message for at Paul” |
pound/hash/number sign | # | I live at apartment #40 | By itself: “number” In context: I live at apartment number 40″ | By itself: nothing In context: “I live at apartment 40” (NVDA does NOT read the number sign) | By itself: “number” In context: I live at apartment number 4 zero” |
caret | ^ | This is ^not the worst I’ve seen | By itself: “caret” In context: “This is caret not the worst I’ve seen” | By itself: nothing In context: “This is not the worst I’ve seen (NVDA does NOT read the caret) | By itself: “caret” In context: “This is caret not the worst I’ve seen” |
ampersand, typed as & | & | M&Ms BB&T black & white | By itself: “and” In context:
| By itself: “and” In context:
| By itself: “and” In context:
|
ampersand | & | M&Ms BB&T black & white | By itself: “and” In context:
| By itself: “and” In context:
| By itself: “and” In context:
|
asterisk | * | Fields marked with * are required. Name* | By itself: “star” In context:
| By itself: nothing In context:
| By itself: “star” In context:
|
left parenthesis | ( | I am (understandably) excited. | By itself: “left paren” In context: “I am left paren understandably right paren excited” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA does not say anything, nor does it pause; it reads straight through | By itself: “left paren” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly for the opening and closing parentheses, but does not say anything. |
right parenthesis | ) | I am (understandably) excited. | By itself: “right paren” In context: “I am left paren understandably right paren excited” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA does not say anything, nor does it pause; it reads straight through | By itself: “right paren” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly for the opening and closing parentheses, but does not say anything. |
dash | – | blue-green. This is — not unexpectedly — a parenthetical clause. | By itself: “dash” In context: “blue dash green” “This is m dash not unexpectedly m dash a parenthetical clause.” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA does not say anything, nor does it pause; it reads straight through | By itself: “dash” In context: “blue green”. VoiceOver does not read the dash. |
m dash, typed as — | -- | This is also—not unexpectedly—a parenthetical clause. | By itself: “m dash” In context: “This is also m dash not unexpectedly m dash a parenthetical clause.” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA does not say anything, nor does it pause; it reads straight through | By itself: “m dash” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly for each of the m dashes, but does not say anything. |
n dash, typed as – | – | This is another – not unexpectedly – parenthetical clause. This is another–not unexpectedly–parenthetical clause. | By itself: “n dash” In context: “This is another n dash not unexpectedly n dash parenthetical clause.” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA does not say anything, nor does it pause; it reads straight through | By itself: “n dash” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly for each of the m dashes, without saying anything, but ONLY IF there are spaces between the words and the dashes. Without spaces, VoiceOver does not pause at all. |
underscore | _ | my_file_name.jpg | By itself: “underline” In context: “my underline file underline name dot J P G” | By itself: nothing In context: “my file name dot J P G” (NVDA does not say “underline”) | By itself: “underline” In context: “my underline file underline name dot jaypeg” |
comma | , | The house is green, red, and orange. | By itself: comma In context: JAWS pauses briefly, but does not say “comma” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA pauses briefly, but does not say “comma” | By itself: “comma” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does not say “comma” |
period | . | I like cheese. | By itself: “period” In context: JAWS pauses, but does not say “period” | By itself: “dot” In context: NVDA pauses, but does not say “period” | By itself: “period” In context: VoiceOver pauses, but does not say “period” |
three periods (pseudo ellipses) | … | This sentence trails off… And here is another sentence. | By itself: “dot dot dot” In context: “This sentence trails off dot dot dot and here is another sentence” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA pauses briefly, but does not read the periods | By itself: nothing In context: VoiceOver does not say “ellipses,” but it does pause longer than normal. |
ellipses typed as … | … | This sentence trails off… And here is another sentence. | By itself: “ellipses” In context: JAWS does not say “ellipses,” but it does pause longer than normal. | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA pauses briefly, but does not read the ellipses | By itself: “ellipses” In context: VoiceOver does not say “ellipses,” but it does pause longer than normal. |
forward slash | / | home/products/widgets Give him/her a prize. https://www.deque.com | By itself: “slash” In context:
| By itself: “slash” In context:
| By itself: “slash” In context:
|
backslash | c:folderfile.docx | By itself: “backslash” In context: “c colon backslash folder backslash file dot docx” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “backslash” In context: “c backslash folder backslash file dot docx” | |
vertical bar | | | Products | Our web site | By itself: “vertical bar” In context: “Products vertical bar our web site” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: nothing In context: “Products vertical line our web site” |
question mark | ? | What do you mean? Are you crazy?? Are you still crazy?!? | By itself: “question?” In context:
| By itself: nothing In context:
| By itself: “question” In context:
|
inverted question mark, typed as ¿ | ¿ | No estoy seguro. ¿Quién soy? No estoy seguro. Quién soy. | By itself: “inverted question” In context: JAWS changes the inflection for the question, but does not mention the inverted question mark at the beginning. | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA changes the voice inflection for the question, but does not mention the inverted question mark at the beginning | By itself: “inverted question mark” In context: VoiceOver does NOT change inflection (and it ignores the lang=”es” set on the td tag) |
semi-colon | ; | The sentence paused; but not for long. | By itself: “semi-colon” In context: “The sentence paused semi-colon but not for long” | By itself: nothing In context: NVDA pauses briefly, but does NOT read the semi-colon | By itself: “semi-colon” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does NOT say “semi-colon” |
colon | : | Gaseous: having the properties of a gas. https://www.deque.com | By itself: “colon” In context:
| By itself: nothing In context: NVDA pauses briefly, but does NOT read the colon | By itself: “colon” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does NOT say “colon” |
double quotation mark | “ | I feel “fine,” she said, sarcastically. | By itself: “quote” In context: “I feel quote fine quote she said sarcastically” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “quote” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly but does NOT say “quote” |
double quotation mark, typed as " | “ | I feel “fine,” she said, sarcastically. | By itself: “quote” In context: “I feel quote fine quote she said sarcastically” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “quote” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly but does NOT say “quote” |
right double quotation mark | ” | I feel “fine,” she said, sarcastically. | By itself: “right quote” In context: “I feel left quote fine right quote she said sarcastically” | By itself: nothing In context: “I feel fine, she said, sarcastically” | By itself: “right double quotation mark” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly but does NOT say anything |
left double quotation mark | “ | I feel “fine,” she said, sarcastically. | By itself: “left quote” In context: “I feel left quote fine right quote she said sarcastically” | By itself: nothing In context: “I feel fine, she said, sarcastically” | By itself: “left double quotation mark” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly but does NOT say anything |
left double angle bracket, typed as «t; | « | This is a «word» surrounded by angle brackets. | By itself: “left double angle bracket” In context: “This is a left double angle bracket word right double angle bracket surrounded by angle brackets” | By itself: nothing In context: “This is a word surrounded by angle brackets” | By itself: “left pointing double arrow” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does not pronounce the angle bracket. |
right double angle bracket, typed as »t; | » | Home » Products | By itself: “right double angle bracket” In context: “Home double angle bracket products” | By itself: nothing In context: “Home products” | By itself: “right pointing double arrow” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does not pronounce the angle bracket. |
(written as ‹) | ‹ | This is a ‹word› surrounded by angle brackets. | By itself: nothing In context: “This is a word surrounded by angle brackets” | By itself: nothing In context: “This is a word surrounded by angle brackets” | By itself: “left pointing [unintelligible] quotation mark In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does not pronounce the angle bracket. |
(written as ›) | › | Home › Products | By itself: nothing In context: “Home products” | By itself: nothing In context: “Home products” | By itself: “right pointing [unintelligible] quotation mark” In context: VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does not pronounce the angle bracket. |
single quotation mark, or apostrophe | ‘ | Don’t rock the boat. This is Mary’s. This is a ‘quotation’ of sorts. | By itself: “apostrophe” In context:
| By itself: nothing In context:
| By itself: “apostrophe” In context:
|
right single quotation mark, or right apostrophe, typed as ’ | ’ | Don’t rock the boat. This is Mary’s This is a ‘quotation’ of sorts. | By itself: “apostrophe” In context:
| By itself: nothing In context:
| By itself: “apostrophe” In context:
|
left single quotation mark, or left apostrophe, typed as ‘ | ‘ | This is a ‘quotation’ of sorts. | By itself: “apostrophe” In context: “This is a apostrophe quotation apostrophe of sorts” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “right single quotation mark” In context: “This is a quotation of sorts” (VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does NOT say anything here) |
left brace | { | You should {brace} yourself. | By itself: “left brace” In context: “You should left brace brace right brace yourself” | By itself: nothingIn context: nothing | “By itself: left brace” In context: “You should left brace brace right brace yourself” |
right brace | } | You should {brace} yourself. | By itself: “right brace” In context: “You should left brace brace right brace yourself” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “right brace” In context: “You should left brace brace right brace yourself” |
left bracket | [ | You should [bracket] your words. | By itself: “left bracket” In context: “You should left bracket bracket right bracket your words” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “left bracket” In context: “You should bracket your words” (VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does NOT say “bracket”) |
right bracket | ] | You should [bracket] your words. | By itself: “right bracket” In context: “You should left bracket bracket right bracket your words” | By itself: nothing In context: nothing | By itself: “right bracket” In context: “You should bracket your words” (VoiceOver pauses briefly, but does NOT say “bracket”) |
Symbol | The character by itself | In Context | JAWS 15 | NVDA | VoiceOver |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
copyright, written as © | © | This content © Deque. | By itself: “copyright” In context: “This content copyright Deque” | By itself: “copyright” In context: “This content copyright Deque” | By itself: “copyright sign” In context: “This content copyright sign Deque” |
registered trademark symbol, written as ® | ® | Spam® | By itself: “registered” In context: “Spam registered” | By itself: “registered” In context: “Spam registered” | By itself: “registered sign” In context: “Spam registered sign” |
trademark symbol, TM, written as ™ | ™ | Fits like a glove™ | By itself: “trademark”In context: “Fits like a glove trademark” | By itself: “trademark” In context: “Fits like a glove trademark” | By itself: “trademark”In context: “Fits like a glove trademark” |
section, written as § | § | Be sure to read §24.1. | By itself: “section” In context: “Be sure to read section twenty four point one” | By itself: nothing In context: “Be sure to read twenty four point one” (NVDA does NOT read the section symbol) | By itself: “section symbol” In context: “Be sure to read section symbol two four point one” |
paragraph symbol, written as ¶ | ¶ | Have you seen ¶3 on page 3? | By itself: “paragraph”In context: “Have you seen paragraph three on page three?” | By itself: “paragraph” In context: “Have you seen paragraph three on page three?” | By itself: I think VoiceOver says “para emoji” but it is really hard to understand.In context: “Have you seen para emoji three on page 3?” |
small bullet, written as · | · | · A phrase · and another phrase | By itself: “dot” In context: “dot a phrase dot and another phrase” | By itself: nothing In context: “A phrase and another phrase” (NVDA does NOT read the small bullet) | By itself: nothing In context: Voice over does not read the dot or pause at all. |
medium bullet, written as • | • | • A phrase • and another phrase | By itself: “bullet” In context: “bullet a phrase bullet and another phrase” | By itself: “bullet” In context: “Bullet a new phrase bullet and another phrase” | By itself: “bullet” In context: “Bullet a new phrase bullet and another phrase” |
dagger, written as † | † | Read the footnote† | By itself: “single dagger” In context: “Read the footnote single dagger” | By itself: nothing In context: “Read the footnote” (NVDA does NOT read the dagger) | By itself: nothing In context: VoiceOver does NOT read the dagger |
double dagger, written as ‡ | ‡ | Read the other footnote‡ | By itself: “double dagger” In context: “Read the other footnote double dagger” | By itself: nothing In context: “Read the other footnote” (NVDA does NOT read the double dagger) | By itself: nothing In context: VoiceOver does NOT read the double dagger |
right arrow, written as → | ? | Press the ? key | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: “right arrow” In context: “Press the right arrow key” | By itself: “right arrow” In context: “Press the right arrow key” |
left arrow, written as ⇆ | ? | Press the ? key | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: “left arrow” In context: “Press the left arrow key” | By itself: “left arrow” In context: “Press the left arrow key” |
up arrow, written as ↑ | ? | Press the ? key | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the up arrow symbol) | By itself: “up arrow” In context: “Press the up arrow key” |
down arrow, written as ↓ | ? | Press the ? key | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the down arrow symbol) | By itself: “down arrow” In context: “Press the down arrow key” |
horizontal arrow, written as ↔ | ? | Move ? horizontally. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the horizontal arrow symbol) | By itself: “left right arrow” In context: “Move left right arrow horizontally” |
double right arrow, written as ⇒ | ? | Look over there ? at that shark. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the double right arrow symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: Voiceover does NOT read the double arrow, and does NOT pause. |
double left arrow, written as ⇚ | ? | Look over there ? at that dolphin. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the double left arrow symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: Voiceover does NOT read the double arrow, and does NOT pause. |
double up arrow, written as ⇑ | ? | Look up there ? at that platypus. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the double up arrow symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: Voiceover does NOT read the double arrow, and does NOT pause. |
double down arrow, written as ⇓ | ? | Look down there ? at that echidna. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the double down arrow symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: Voiceover does NOT read the double arrow, and does NOT pause. |
double horizontal arrow, written as ⇔ | ? | I’m ? confused. | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the [slight pause] key” (JAWS pauses, but does not read the character) | By itself: nothing In context: “Press the key” (NVDA does NOT read the horizontal double arrow symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: Voiceover does NOT read the double arrow, and does NOT pause. |
playing cards: spades, written as ♠ | ? | Let’s call a ? a ?. | By itself: nothing In context: “Let’s call a a.” | By itself: nothing In context: “Let’s call a a” (NVDA does NOT read the spade symbol) | By itself: “spades suit emoji” In context: “Let’s call a spades suit emoji a spades suit emoji” |
playing cards: clubs, written as ♣ | ? | I found a ?. Today is my lucky day. | By itself: nothing In context: “I found a. Today is my lucky day” | By itself: nothing In context: “I found a. Today is my lucky day.” (NVDA does NOT read the club symbol) | By itself: “clubs suit emoji” In context: “I found a spades suit emoji. Today is my lucky day.” |
playing cards: hearts, written as ♥ | ? | I ? you. | By itself: nothing In context: “I you” | By itself: nothing In context: “I you” (NVDA does NOT read the heart symbol) | By itself: “hearts suit emoji” In context: “I hearts suit emoji you” |
playing cards: diamonds, written as ♦ | ? | Someone once said a ? is a girl’s best friend. | By itself: “black diamond suit” In context: “Someone once said a black diamond suit is a girl’s best friend” | By itself: nothing In context: “Someone once said a is a girl’s best friend” (NVDA does NOT read the diamond symbol) | By itself: “diamonds suit emoji” In context: “Someone once said a diamonds suit emoji is a girl’s best friend. |
Symbol | The character by itself | In Context | JAWS 14 | NVDA | VoiceOver |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dollar symbol | $ | $21 | By itself: “dollar” In context: “dollar twenty one” | By itself: “Dollar” In context: “Dollar twenty one” | By itself: “Dollar” In context: “Dollar two one” |
Euro symbol, written as € | € | €21 | By itself: “euros” In context: “Twenty one Euros” | By itself: “Euros” In context: “Euros twenty one” | By itself: “Euro two one” In context: “Euro two one” |
Yen symbol, written as ¥ | ¥ | ¥500 | By itself: “yen” In context: “Yen five hundred” | By itself: “Yen” In context: “Yen five hundred” | By itself: “Yen” In context: “Yen five zero zero” |
Pound symbol, written as £ | £ | £10 | By itself: “pounds” In context: “ten pounds” | By itself: “Pound” In context: “Pound ten” | By itself: “Pound” In context: “Pound one zero” |
Symbol | The character by itself | In Context | JAWS 15 | NVDA | VoiceOver |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
plus | + | 5+2 | By itself: “plus” In context: “5 plus 2” | By itself: nothing In context: “five two” (NVDA does NOT read the plus symbol) | By itself: “plus” In context: “five plus two” |
minus, written as − | ? | 5?2 | By itself: nothing In context: “5 dash 2” (Note that this is the incorrect interpretation of this symbol) | By itself: “minus” In context: “five minus two” | By itself: “minus” In context: “five minus two” |
plus or minus, written as ± | ± | 5±2 | By itself: “plus or minus” In context: “5 plus or minus 2” | By itself: nothing In context: “five two” (NVDA does NOT read the plus or minus symbol) | By itself: “plus or minus” In context: “five plus or minus two” |
divided by, written as ÷ | ÷ | 5÷2 | By itself: “divided by” In context: “5 divided by 2” | By itself: nothing In context: “five two” (NVDA does NOT read the divided by symbol) | By itself: “divided by” In context: “five divided by two” |
multiplied by, written as × | × | 5×2 | By itself: “times” In context: “5 times 2” | By itself: nothing In context: “five two” (NVDA does NOT read the times symbol) | By itself: “times” In context: “five times two” |
equal sign | = | 5=3+2 | By itself: “equals” In context: “5 equals 3 plus 2” | By itself: nothing In context: “five three two” (NVDA does NOT read equals or plus) | By itself: “equals” In context: “Five equals three plus two” |
not equal, written as ≠ | ? | 5?2 | By itself: nothing In context: “5 question mark 2” (Note that this is the incorrect interpretation of this symbol) | By itself: “not equal to” In context: “five not equal to two” | By itself: “not equals” In context: “five not equals two” |
approximately equal, written as ≈ | ? | 5?4.999 5 ? 4.999 | By itself: “tilde” (Note: this is the wrong interpretation of this symbol) In context: “5 tilde 4.999” (Note: this is the wrong interpretation of this symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: “five four point nine nine nine” (NVDA does not read the approximately equal symbol) | By itself: “Almost equal to” In context: VoiceOver does NOT read the symbol at all, whether surrounded by spaces or not. VoiceOver says “five four point nine nine nine.” |
percent | % | 5% | By itself: “percent” In context: “5 percent” | By itself: “percent” In context: “5 percent” | By itself: “percent” In context: “five percent” |
percent with 2-digit denominator, written as ‰ | ‰ | 5‰ | By itself: nothing In context: “five” (JAWS does not read the symbol at all) | By itself: nothing In context: “five” (NVDA does not read the per mil symbol) | By itself: “per mil sign”In context: “five per mil” |
fraction: half, written as ½ | ½ | ½ cup | By itself: “one half”In context: “one half cup” | By itself: “a half” In context: “a half cup” | By itself: “one half” In context: “one half cup” |
fraction: one quarter, written as ¼ | ¼ | ¼ liter | By itself: “one fourth” In context: “one fourth liter” | By itself: “a quarter” In context: “a quarter liter” | By itself: “one fourth” In context: “one fourth liter” |
fraction: three quarters, written as ¾ | ¾ | ¾ kilometer | By itself: “three fourths” In context: “three fourths kilometer” | By itself: “three quarter” In context: “three quarter kilometer” | By itself: “three fourths” In context: “three fourths kilometer” |
less than, written as < | < | 5<6 | By itself: “less” In context: “5 less 6” | By itself: nothing In context: “five six” | By itself: “less” In context: “five less than six” |
greater than, written as > | > | 5>4 | By itself: greater In context: “5 greater 4” | By itself: nothing In context: “five four” | By itself: “greater” In context: “five greater than four” |
less than or equal, written as ≤ | ? | 5?x | By itself: “equals” (Note: This is NOT the correct meaning of this symbol) In context: “5 equals x” (Note that this is the incorrect interpretation of this symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: “five x” (NVDA does NOT read the less than or equal to symbol) | By itself: “less than or equal to” In context: “five less than or equal to x” |
greater than or equal, written as ≥ | ? | 5?y | By itself: “equals” (Note: This is NOT the correct meaning of this symbol) In context: “5 equals y” (Note that this is the incorrect interpretation of this symbol) | By itself: nothing In context: “five y” (NVDA does NOT read the greater than or equal to symbol) | By itself: “greater than or equal to” In context: “five greater than or equal to y” |
prime, written as ′ | ? | 1? | By itself: nothing In context: JAWS does NOT read the symbol at all | By itself: nothing In context: “one” (NVDA does NOT read the prime symbol) | By itself: “prime” In context: “one prime” |
double prime, written as ″ | ? | 1? | By itself: nothing In context: JAWS does NOT read the symbol at all | By itself: nothing In context: “one” (NVDA does NOT read the double prime symbol) | By itself: “double prime” In context: “one double prime” |
degree, written as ° | ° | 90° | By itself: “degrees” In context: “ninety degrees” | By itself: “degrees” In context: “ninety degrees” | By itself: “degrees” In context: “nine zero degrees” |
sum, written as ∑ | ? | ?i=x+y | By itself: nothing In context: “i equals x plus y” (JAWS does not read the sum symbol at all) | By itself: nothing In context: “i x y” (NVDA does NOT read the sum symbol or the equals sign or the plus sign) | By itself: (sort of) It’s hard to understand but it sounds like it might be saying “summation,” preceded by some other sounds In context: I’m not sure what this is actually saying, but it sounds like “bi equals x plus y” |
microns, written as µ | µ | 5µ | By itself: “mu” (sounds like “myoo”) In context: “5 mu” | By itself: “micro” In context: “five mu” | By itself: “Greek small letter mu” (sounds like “myoo”) In context: VoiceOver does NOT read the character. It simply says “five” |