What do the "fast forward" and "rewind" commands for VoiceOver commanders do?

By Chris, 30 May, 2015

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macOS and Mac Apps

Hello.

The topic says it all. I was looking around in the commands for VO commanders and found fastforward and rewind commands. When I perform the assigned keyboard command or trackpad gesture in keyboard help, it says it allows navigation quickly in reverse or forward direction during read all. When I go to something and press VO a to read all and press the assigned key or gesture, speech stops and it reads the next or previous word. How is this command supposed to work? As far as I know, it's not documented anywhere and doesn't have a built-in VoiceOver command with the VO keys. I would like to know what this does andh ow to use it properly.

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By mehgcap on Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 15:34

You must hold down the key to get it to work properly. It appears that a single press will, as you say, move by word only. I imagine that these commands might not work well as TrackPad commanders, then, since you must issue those one at a time and can't "hold down" the command like you can the keyboard. I haven't tried that, though.

Thanks for posting your question. I'd never played with these commands, and likely never would have if you hadn't asked how they work. This will be very useful, especially if I'm reading and miss a few words. I can now simply "rewind" some and hear that bit again!

By Chris on Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 15:34

This is interesting. I remember reading something about that in the What's new in VoiceOver section in Mountain Lion. I had no clue what it meant until I was playing around with commanders earlier this week. So, this command essentially makes the speech back up or move forward when using VO a or VO b?

It's amazing what things you learn. It's true that you learn something new every day. I'm glad this question helped you.