Hi! Does anyone have any tips for using Google Sheets with VoiceOver in MacOS? I'm working with VoiceOver more and more as my vision continues to get worse, and while I've been making great progress, I find Google Sheets almost unusable. I've enabled the screen reader support and have been able to, ever so carefully, make minor edits to documents, but I just can't seem to get things like navigation to work consistently. I'm hoping that I just don't know what I'm doing and someone will have some insight that will really help. One thing that's very annoying and confusing is finding out where I'm at in the actual sheet at any given time. I know there are keybaord shortcuts specific to Google Sheets itself that can announce row and column coordinates, as well as other shortcuts like that, but they seem to be in conflict with MacOS shortcuts. I know I could use the VO shortcut to ignore the next keypress, but do I have to do that every single time? Is there no easier way to do things?
I've heard from some people that Google Sheets is better on iOS and iPadOS with a keyboard. Has that been your experience?
Comments
Braille support
Turn on Braille support, not just screen reader support. It doesn't matter if you don't have a Braille display. Also yes you'll have to pass through every time. I recommend Windows if you're going to use Google Suite heavily. Sadly there's no way around it.
Yes
You can always use capslock as VO modifier, passthrough will just make the experience infinitely worse than it already is.
I was about to post a similar comment before but never submitted it, but sadly it's the honest truth, don't expect daily productivity with google web apps, or any rich complex advanced web app on mac with voiceover. Windows sadly is the way to go here. This is how I was so happy about my one month experience with asahi linux because orca is way better at this as buggy and unfunded it is compared to VO.
You can just use a windows VM for that, it's a legitimate use case for us as blind users of windows VM on mac. That's what I do.
As for what software to use, threads here are plenty and there are discussions about the advantage of the most popular ones.
I hope it helps. I know it's not the answer you or anybody wants, but it's fact. I am not saying GSuite is impossible to use, but it's often painful. It may be accessible, but it's not the best in terms of usability and day to day conveniance.
I would ask on multiple forums
There is a comment on the
Mac visionaries google group that it is accessible. does that mean those on AppleVis are wrong? No people may have different experiences with it. so it is a good idea to get as much knowledge as possible. I've also heard from other blind people that google docs are accessible and that wasn't on the Mac visionaries list.
@TheBlindGuy07
No, thank you–That's exactly what I need to hear. I need honest, practical feedback. I'm always trying to figure out better ways of working around things and all that, but at the end of the day, I want to know what is realistic. When you say it is better on Windows, is that mostly a function of the Google-specific keyboard shortcuts not being in conflict with the OS, or are there other aspects to it that I haven't considered? I've not used Windows or Linux in several years now, and never a VM on MacOS, so I'm just trying to get a feel for whether it's worth exploring that over moving a lot of my documents to other applications. Also, do you have any input on the iOS and iPadOS versions of Google Sheets as compared to the browser version?
Keyboard conflicts
I would say it's more than likely a conflict between web app hotkeys, Google Sheets in this case, conflicting with OS and/or screen reader hotkeys, macOS & VoiceOver in this case. While I have not used Sheets in several years, nor macOS in nearly 2 years, I can say with some confidence that Google web apps work well enough with Windows and its selection of screen reader support over macOS and its lack thereof.
Re: Google and Windows.
You get some of the same things there, e.g. Google suggests redefining the default NVDA shortcut from ctrl-alt-enter, or whatever it is, I haven't used Windows in so long I don't remember anymore. So yeah, Google just has some terrible keyboard shortcuts that conflict with things.
Fair
The CTRL+ALT+N to launch NVDA by default does conflict with Google Docs. That is also easily fixable. Not sure what all needs to be, 'adjusted', for VO to work with Google apps sufficiently.
This Google Docs guide for macOS and VO may have some pointers that are relevant in Google Sheets as well.
https://www.applevis.com/blog/taming-beast-google-docs-macos
HTH.
It sounds worse for Mac.
It seems like you'd have to change or disable a lot more stuff, at least potentially. I just remembered when I briefly played with Google's stuff before abandoning it that the first thing they suggested for screen reader support was, "yeah it conflicts with our stuff, change your screen reader"! That struck me as pretty dumb, I don't see why they couldn't set up better shortcuts. So I get wanting to modify your setup as little as possible to accommodate Google's stuff.
AndroidOS
We will have to see how Desktop Android handles the interwebs, and web apps. I do remember that ChromeOS used to work well with Google stuff, way back when. 🤷
Thanks
Thanks to everyone for their input. Looks like I'll have to explore different ways of doing things, whether in sheets with a new OS or a different application. I did try enabling braille support also, as was suggested above, but it had not changed in function (except that it was slower). Pass-through worked for those Sheets-specific shortcuts that conflicted with VoiceOver shortcuts, but there were still shortcuts in sheets that conflicted with non-VoiceOver MacOS shortcuts. I'm still going to look at the links provided in the comments in hopes of learning something new, but Sheets plus MacOS doesn't look good.
Use Parallels Desktop + Windows 11
Hi. I'm a very heavy GSuite user. I have been using it since 2017 because my job (and later my own business) require it. VoiceOver's support for Chrome has got worse over time, and so has GSuite's support for Safari.
That's why I use a Windows VM. The productivity gains from using MacOS and Windows and their respective screen readers for what each is great at is definitely worth the €69 or so you pay for Parallels. Also, Parallels is really good at plugging into your Mac, so you can for example open PDFs with Acrobat on Windows without breaking your flow.
You'll need sighted assistance to change the settings, but using AIRA or VOCR can get you through.
Well
I am also a very very happy user of parallels desktop. You don't necessarily need sighted assistance, but VOCR indeed can be tricky and there are other qt specific problem with parallels, EI combobox opening the list in a new window, at least that's how it appears to VO. This is not a Parallels specific problem, cisco packet tracer has the same and both are built in QT. Though you wanna wait before buying as the shortcut settings still don't save and it's a painful process setting them up for the first few times, more details on the latest parallels topic created by yours truly...