{"id":1799,"date":"2013-05-21T11:43:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T15:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.equipmentlink.org\/blog\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2013-05-21T11:49:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T15:49:28","slug":"nvda-the-free-open-source-screen-reader-52113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.equipmentlink.org\/blog\/?p=1799","title":{"rendered":"NVDA – The free, open-source screen reader, 5\/21\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"

NVDA – The free, open-source screen reader<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Contributed by Joel Zimba, Technology Outreach Coordinator, MDTAP<\/em><\/p>\n

Traditional screen readers for Windows are expensive.\u00a0 They can cost anywhere from a few hundred to the low thousands of dollars.\u00a0 It\u2019s not uncommon for assistive technology to cost more than the common off-the-shelf hardware with which it works.<\/p>\n

NVDA, which stands for \u201cNon-Visual Desktop Access\u201d is a free screen reader for Windows which does nearly as much as the expensive screen reading solutions, but costs nothing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good product.\u00a0 We use it here at MDTAP and often recommend it to clients.<\/p>\n

NVDA has a newly redesigned home at:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.nvaccess.org<\/a>.\u00a0 Here, you can download the newest release (there is a new one as of this month) and get all of the information about installing, and using NVDA you could possibly want.\u00a0 Of course, being Open-source, you can also get the source code or contribute to the project either with your coding skills or with some financial lubrication.<\/p>\n

The free voices which come with NVDA are terrible in my opinion, but additional voices can be purchased, some of which are very high quality. I was pleasantly surprised by the voice samples available\u00a0 on the website.<\/p>\n

Later this afternoon, I plan to check out the new NVDA support for MS Power Point.\u00a0 JAWS For Windows doesn\u2019t work particularly well with it, so I am eager to see how well NVDA stacks up.<\/p>\n

If you want a smaller, faster and free solution for screen access to Windows, try out NVDA.<\/p>\n

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