Most accessible way to use Google Docs and Google sheets on macOS

I use the built-in text to speech function available on Mac. It’s a little bit clunky and I’m pretty sure it would not be great for a totally blind user, but I am visually impaired so it seems to work OK for me. Would love to hear what others have to say about this topic.

I've encountered problems with Google Docs using multiple screen readers on several operating systems. Reading documents is usually fine, but editing can lead to difficulties.

You might have to export the documents in Microsoft Word or Excel format, edit them locally, and then upload the results - tedious, but if the Google applications aren't working reliably for you, that's your alternative. It assumes you have Apple iWorks or Microsoft Office installed on the Mac.

Before doing that, enable screen reader support in Google Docs and Google Sheets, and try to use them with VoiceOver under either Safari or Chrome. There are instructions on Google's Web site, including keyboard commands for navigating in Google Docs with a screen reader.

Google Sheets works fine for me in Safari. It opens right to the sheet if you are logged in and you can see the rows and write in them. I have not done anything more complex, but I have no issues. don't enable Braille support, just Screen Reader. You can read row or column titles and I don't even know if that's possible in Windows. Docx gave me a headache though I could work with it better with Chrome.

A few years back, I wrote Taming the Beast, a blog about using Google Docs and Drive with VoiceOver on Mac OS. Note that Safari currently has problems with Google Drive, but there are workarounds. I'm still using Safari for Drive and Docs on a daily basis. Most of the idiosyncrasies and workarounds have become second nature for me.

Lately, I've started using Google Sheets and find them accessible for the most part. Whenever I'm stuck and can't figure something out, I search keyboard shortcuts with Command+Slash or search the menus with Option+Slash.

I'd like to write another blog, Taming the Beast 2, for Google Sheets. But Safari will need to become more usable with Google apps first, as I don't want to have to enumerate all the Safari workarounds, or spend paragraphs contrasting differences between Safari and Chrome.

I hope this helps.

To get up and running with Sheets, I recommend reading Google Sheets with a screen reader. Then remember you can search keyboard shortcuts with Command+Slash, and menus with Option+Slash. That's 90% of what you should need.