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can't use browse mode to read a google doc in firefox

Mary Otten
 

Hi all,


I got an  email with a link for a google document that is housed on somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc, and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course, continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a solution here?


Mary
Christopher Bartlett
 

There's a built-in keystroke in google docs.  Holding down ctrl and alt, press a and then r and you should hear speech.  This is not as effective as continuous reading, as it doesn't move your editing cursor, but you can at least hear a say-all-ish reading.

Christopher Bartlett


On Thu, Jul 21, 2022 at 3:13 PM Mary Otten <maryotten@...> wrote:
Hi all,


I got an  email with a link for a google document that is housed on
somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc,
and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously
with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is
on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course,
continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line
at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a
solution here?


Mary









--
Christopher Bartlett
Bob Cavanaugh
 

This is a good question. I had a similar experience with a Google doc
a while back, but I decided to view that document when logged in and
it worked fine. This is something that should be resolved though.

On 7/21/22, Mary Otten <maryotten@...> wrote:
Hi all,


I got an  email with a link for a google document that is housed on
somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc,
and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously
with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is
on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course,
continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line
at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a
solution here?


Mary
Sharni-Lee Ward
 

I don't remember the keystroke off the top of my head, but last year I got this to work by turning on Braille Mode as well as Accessibility mode in Google Sheets/Docs. I don't know why this makes Browse Mode work better, but it actually does.

On 22/07/2022 6:13 am, Mary Otten wrote:

Hi all,


I got an  email with a link for a google document that is housed on somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc, and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course, continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a solution here?


Mary







Sharni-Lee Ward
 

I just checked, and it's not a shortcut, it's a setting.


Open the menus in Google Sheets or Docs with alt+/, then press Right Arrow until you get to the Tools Submenu. Scroll down until you hear Accessibility, then hit Enter. Tab until you hear "Turn On Braille Support". It's a checkbox, so check it, then tab to OK.


It seems bizarre. It seems like it will not help you with your screen-reader's accessibility of a thing, especially when there is already a Screen-Reader Support setting. But it really truly does work.

On 22/07/2022 11:47 am, Sharni-Lee Ward wrote:

I don't remember the keystroke off the top of my head, but last year I got this to work by turning on Braille Mode as well as Accessibility mode in Google Sheets/Docs. I don't know why this makes Browse Mode work better, but it actually does.

On 22/07/2022 6:13 am, Mary Otten wrote:
Hi all,


I got an  email with a link for a google document that is housed on somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc, and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course, continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a solution here?


Mary







Brian's Mail list account
 

Unfortunately some readers seem to feel that self voicing documents is a good idea and it to be frank stinks of lazy programming. You need your own screenreader to work for productivity reasons, after all.
Often the voice is nice and human, but very hard to speed up and hard to control where its reading from.

They should make a choice. I did wonder if there was a Google doc converter that put the file into a format one can read. Some organisations seem to think the world uses Google or Outlook for calendars as well, not realising that those outside of their system are going to curse them grin.
Brian

--
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Sent via blueyonder.(Virgin media)
Please address personal E-mail to:-
briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cavanaugh" <cavbob1993@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2022 11:08 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] can't use browse mode to read a google doc in firefox


This is a good question. I had a similar experience with a Google doc
a while back, but I decided to view that document when logged in and
it worked fine. This is something that should be resolved though.

On 7/21/22, Mary Otten <maryotten@...> wrote:
Hi all,


I got an email with a link for a google document that is housed on
somebody's google drive. I'm not logged in, so I can't edit this doc,
and I don't want to. But what I would like to do is read continuously
with nvda plus down arrow on the desktop layout. But if browse mode is
on, all I get is blank, blank, blank. With browse off, of course,
continuous reading doesn't work, so all you can do is arrow down a line
at a time which is laborious and slow in a 17-page document. Is there a
solution here?


Mary
Sharni-Lee Ward
 

As I said before, there is a way to get this to work, and that is to turn on Braille Support as well as Screen Reader Support in Google Sheets/Docs (it works for both). Instructions as to how to do this are in another thread from this email.


I agree, self-voiced text-reading can be a big problem. I personally prefer Espeak NG to nearly every other synthetic voice I have come across. More human-sounding should not mean sounds disinterested or unnaturally calm all the time. Until they have a humanlike voice that does inflection more organically/context-sensitively (and I say this knowing such a voice would probably cost a mint), I'll stick to Espeak, which I can at least max out inflection on without it sounding dreadful like Eloquence did when I tried it a long time ago. I do not need cartoonishly chipper, but if I am reading a story, inflection is essential, and I read a lot of fictional and non-fictional prose with NVDA.

On 22/07/2022 4:59 pm, Brian's Mail list account via groups.io wrote:

Unfortunately some readers seem to feel that self voicing documents is a good idea and it to be frank stinks of lazy programming. You need your own screenreader to work for productivity reasons, after all.
Often the voice is nice and human, but very hard to speed up and hard to control where its reading from.

They should make a choice. I did wonder if there was a  Google doc converter that put the file into a format one can read. Some organisations seem to think the world uses Google or Outlook for calendars as well, not realising that those outside of their system are going to curse them grin.
Brian

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