Paging up and down with VoiceOver

By Tayo, 25 August, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

So I’ve been using a Mac for well over a year now, and I think I’ve mastered most everything, even if I’ve yet to make it my go-to machine for every task. One of the minor annoyances I have with VoiceOver on the Mack is the seemingly total lack of paging function. Sure, if you turn on keyboard help and press VO plus’s FM and any of the arrow keys it tells me those are the page up, down, left and right functions, but I can’t actually use them on, say, a webpage. I have no ideas why. Any suggestions on how to make this work, what might be causing it not to work, etc?

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Comments

By John Hope on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

I too would love to hear if there is a way of making paging work... most particularly when editing long text documents.

By Bruce Harrell on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

What happens when you scroll? Have you tried using a voice control function? A numpad commander function? The numpad page down key? The vo command that moves focus to the bottom of the current window?

By Tayo on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

I know how to turn on the scrolling function, but have no idea what to do in that area. Also I'm using a Macbook Pro from2017, so there is no numPad.

By Bruce Harrell on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

Hi. I believe you do have a numpad. I have a 2016 Macbook Pro with touchpad. It has a numpad embedded in the keyboard which is accessed using the fn key, if I remember correctly. I think the number 5 is where the k key is located. I mainly use a desktop, but that's what I remember.

By Tayo on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

So, if there is an embedded numpad, how do I access it? I have FM set up to invoke emojis and symbols, and set up the keyboard so that the function row keys don't have to be pressed with the FM key to act as function keys.

Or at least, that's what I remember. If you have access to our laptop manual, it should give you the details. There may also be a section or 3 in the MacOS version help documentation on using your Macbook numpad. Smile. Shrug. There may even be previous discussions in applevis that give the answers. Try searching applevis for laptop numpad or Macbook numpad or whatever else might yield results. There could also be some discussion regarding using the fn key for your laptop numpad in your vo users manual, too.

Good luck!

By Tayo on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

So am I correct in thinking that the NumPad commander is the embedded numPad in MacBook Pro? I'm using Big Sur, by th way. Just enabled the NumPad commander; going to do a bit of digging to see what I can turn up.

By Bruce Harrell on Sunday, August 29, 2021 - 10:22

As I said, what I recall is that the Macbook numpad is enabled by holding down the fn key and then pressing ordinary Macbook keys like the k key which is the 5 on the laptop numpad that you have just enabled by holding down the fn key. The numpad commander, on the other hand, is a feature of VoiceOver, which is inside MacOS, which is software, not hardware. The fn key is hardware, as is the whole physical laptop keyboard.