VO Commands for Reading Text

By Joseph Westhouse, 18 August, 2015

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

A quick question about reading text on the Mac:

Say I'm navigating a document in Pages. I know I can use Option + Up/Down to navigate by paragraph, and so on. However, when I do this, VO only reads the last bit of the paragraph that the cursor passes over (I think one line, maybe?) - so I I'm navigating past a four-line paragraph, I only hear the last line of it.

My question is this: with a Windows screen reader, you can read by paragraphs (Ctrl + Up/Down), which I find very convenient when reading large blocks of text. Is there any way to do this with VO? Any pointers would be appreciated :-)

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Comments

By Mani on Saturday, August 15, 2015 - 09:51

VO + Shift + PgDn/PgUp

to navigate by sentence it is: VO + Cmd + PgDn/PgUp.
HTH,
mani

By Justin on Saturday, August 15, 2015 - 09:51

Hi!
Yes, as the other poster has stated it's VO+shift+FN if you have a port mac portable. You use the FN key plus the vo and shift keys and up or down arrow to read by paragraph in your document.
Note this will only work in edit documents, so in word processors and pdf files in preview.

By Joseph Westhouse on Saturday, August 15, 2015 - 09:51

Appreciated :-) Would I be right in assuming that these reading commands don't actually move the cursor for editing, unlike the Option + Up/Down command?

By Justin on Saturday, August 15, 2015 - 09:51

Hi,
No. They still move the cursor while moving by paragraph.

By Joseph Westhouse on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 09:51

I feel like I asked this elsewhere, but don't recall the answer, so here goes (again?):

While my newfound ability to read by paragraph is great, there is something I still miss. When I navigate to the next paragraph, VO doesn't read the whole paragraph - just the last bit (probably the last line the cursor passes over). I do miss the convenience of actually being able to read by paragraph. Is there any way to do this in VO - to have the next paragraph actually read in its entirety?

By Andy B. on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 09:51

You can read the next paragraph with VO+SHIFT+PGDWN. If you can't press all of those keys at the same time, try locking the VO keys with VO+;.

By Joseph Westhouse on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 09:51

Okay, I know I was told that already, and for some reason it wasn't working for me. But I just did it, and yes indeed, it works fine. So I'll chalk that one up to user error, and apologize for the trouble. Thanks!