VoiceOver on MacOS: How to know my position within a scroll area?

By JDubz, 10 February, 2023

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

When reading a long email or article that seems to be going on forever, I often want to know how far along I am. Or while I’m working on a document, I often forget where I am and want to know if my cursor position is near the top or bottom of a document I’m editing. (My settings are such that my VO and text cursors are in sync.)

On iOS, this is simple: slide finger to the vertical scroll bar on the right side of the screen, and VO will announce for example, “vertical scroll bar, 42 pages, 38%, adjustable”

Please can someone tell me how to access the identical info on the Mac? That is, the percentage from the top of a scroll area. Alternatively/additionally, while editing, hearing both the line I’m on and the total number of lines would be helpful.

Thanks!

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Comments

By Tyler on Wednesday, February 8, 2023 - 14:23

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

There are several commands which could help you here, however I don't think there's one that exactly reports the position of the VoiceOver cursor within a scroll area. The commands that come to mind are:

  • Describe item in VoiceOver cursor: VO-F3, (or VO-Globe-3 if you're using a Mac with a Touch Bar) press it again for an expanded description of the item if available
  • Describe position of item in VoiceOver cursor: VO-Command-3 (or VO-Globe-Command-3 if you're using a Mac with a Touch Bar) twice
  • Describe item with keyboard focus: VO-F4, (or VO-Globe-4 if you're using a Mac with a Touch Bar) press it again for an expanded description of the item if available
  • Describe item at mouse pointer: VO-F5, (or VO-Globe-5 if you're using a Mac with a Touch Bar) press it again to hear the location of the item relative to the top left of the screen, or press it a third time to hear the position of the item relative to the top of the window

HTH

By JDubz on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - 14:23

Hi Tyler,

Thanks so much for responding. I hadn't realized that pressing VO-F3 a second time can tell me the total number of lines in a TextEdit document (and at least some of the other text editing areas that I tested). It's quite verbose and clumsy though, so it can be hard to parse the info being announced while also remembering what I am in the middle of doing. But still, it's something! For those who might also find this useful:
1. You must be interacting with the text within a text editing area. (You'll hear "in, edit text")
2. Press VO-F3 once to hear the line number your VO cursor is on, along with a whole lot of other info.
3. Press VO-F3 a second time to hear the total number of lines in the text editing area, along with some more info.
4. Do some math in your head to get the percentage of where your VO cursor is positioned within the text editing area.

I haven't gotten this to work in any other contexts unfortunately.

I'm surprised the information I'm looking for (described in my original post) hasn't been made accessible to VoiceOver users! It seems like such an obvious feature.

By JDubz on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - 14:23

So it turns out there exists a command called "Speak Current Page in Scroll Area." While there is no default VO shortcut available, this info can be accessed via the commands menu or you can create a custom shortcut using one of the VoiceOver commanders. it can be found within the "Navigation" category, incidentally where you can also find shortcuts for scrolling up or down a page, which will also speak what page you are on.