Guides: Screen Readers and Accessibility: Screen Readers

What Are Screen Readers and Why Are They Useful?

Screen readers are an assistive technology that can aid those with visual impairments or other issues reading digital text on screen. The screen reader reads aloud the text on screen, alleviating some of the difficulties you may experience when reading the text visually. Screen readers often come with various accessibility features that allow you to personalise and tailor the experience to your needs, such as by changing the speed of the voice or accessing the content on screen solely with the use of a keyboard.

This guide recommends some of the most common free screen readers for different devices. We have also highlighted some of the issues you might experience when using a screen reader with our most popular e-book resources.

Commonly Used Screen Readers

MS Narrator is a free screen reader available to all users of Windows 10 and Windows 11. As a built-in screen reader, it is easily accessed although a bit difficult to use.

MS Narrator comes with a variety of features and accessibility options such as:

Being able to replace common spoken announcements (such as when caps lock is turned on or a typo has been made) with single audio cues
Can be used alongside Windows Magnifier in order to make following along with text easier
Options for changing the voice speed and pitch, as well as other features to suit your preferences
Has a braille option available when used with braille software such as BRLTTY

A link to Microsoft's official guide for using MS Narrator can be found below.

Guide to Using MS Narrator A link to Microsoft's official guide for using MS Narrator

Notes:

It is likely you will be unable to type while narrator is running
It is sometimes difficult to get the majority of the commands to work, often with no indication as to what is preventing the command from executing.
It is difficult to get narrator to consistently read more than a line at a time. It often stops and won't continue unless the user manually changes line.

VoiceOver is a screen reader available to users of Apple devices. Similar to MS Narrator, it is a built-in screen reader that is easily accessed by pressing the command+ F5 keys or by using Siri. You can use VoiceOver with both the keyboard and the mouse cursor.

VoiceOver comes with a variety of features and accessibility options such as:

The Ability to be used with a mouse, keyboard, or via Voice Control
A helpful command menu that allows you to personalise the commands to fit your needs
Compatibility with various braille displays
You can customise the verbosity of the reader, as well as customise how you want the reader to feed back punctuation and common commands
You can select from a variety of different voices from a large selection of languages
You are able to use the mouse in conjunction with the keyboard to navigate. (Other screen readers tend to have issues if the user tries to switch between them.)

A link to an official guide for VoiceOver can be found below.

Guide to Using Apple VoiceOver A link to the official guide for using Apple's VoiceOver on Apple products

Notes:

Not as easy to download documents as many of the apps require Windows to use. If you are using a Mac it is recommended to download Adobe Digital Editions as a way of easily downloading books.
VoiceOver is the best suited to working with both mouse and keyboard for control. The other screen readers tend to have issues with switching between different ways of navigating the page, usually when you try to switch back to keyboard after having used the mouse. Voiceover doesn't experience the same issues when simultaneously using both control methods.
We have found that Voiceover works well as a screen reader and it is the one we would recommend when you are using a Mac computer

NVDA (NonVisualDesktopAccess) is a free to use, open source screen reader that you can use with any computer running on Microsoft Windows. The screen reader comes in the form of a downloadable app that you can download directly on to a computer or to a USB for portable access without the need to redownload again on a new device.

NVDA comes with a variety of features and accessibility options such as:

Portability via the use of a flash drive such as a USB stick
Support for a variety of browsers, email clients and office suites such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
A customisable, built-in speech synthesiser for over 80 languages.
Support for braille displays
Support for common accessibility interfaces such as Microsoft Active Accessibility
Support for use on touch screens with touch commands

A link to the online download and the official online guide can be found below. A guide can also be found within the app itself.

Link to NVDA Download
Official Online Guide for NVDA Screen Reader A link to the Official Online Guide for Using the NVDA Screen Reader

Notes:

As with all screen readers, it can take some getting used to working with NVDA. The guide for learning NVDA is also the least intuitive, with a lot of text being thrown at you with little practical learning like with MS Narrator and Voiceover.
The screen reader is very easy to download and install, only taking a few minutes to set up.
The screen readers portability offers it a significant advantage over other as it means you are able to use it on any available computer without having to install and set up it up on individual devices.
We found NVDA to work better than MS Narrator, with fewer issues with its performance. For this reason, and for its portability, this is the recommended screen reader if you are using a Windows computer.

Information for Screen Reader Use on eBook Databases

Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a huge collection of full-text eBooks across a range of subject areas.

On-campus:- You may see an OpenAthens login screen when accessing Ebook Central on-campus. See our FAQ - How do I login via OpenAthens?

Digital Rights Management

DRM is present in the vast majority of titles found of eBook Central. Most of the restrictions you will encounter are restrictions on downloads, but there are also some restrictions on print and copying. Copying is usually restricted to 20% of the text while printing is usually restricted to 40%.

Formats Available

Ebooks are available in both PDF and EPUB. The PDFs come with a read aloud feature which is better to use than the screen readers in this circumstance.

Downloads

Downloading does not appear to be available.

Accessibility Options

Alt text is available where permitted by the publisher.
The accessibility options menu allows changes to font, colour, contrasts as well as including a magnification feature.
Includes an accessibility mode that can be switched on by the user that allows screen reader interactions with PDFs. To turn it on, you must first login and them select it in the profile settings.
There is the option turn on Opendyslexic typeface.

N.B.

Trying to use MS Narrator is difficult to do even with accessibility mode turned on. However, NVDA and VoiceOver both work fine.
There have been instances where the accessibility mode does not convert the text properly, making it unreadable. This has been a rare occurrence, with the accessibility mode working well the majority of the time.

Hints and Tips

We recommend using the accessibility mode and the inbuilt read aloud feature over a third-party screen reader, especially when attempting to read a PDF.
eBook Central recommends using Firefox if you attempt to use NVDA.
eBook Central recommends using EPUB format when available as headings and labels are not always provided by the publisher, making navigation difficult for screen readers.

eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Full-text eBooks on a range of subjects comprising the Academic, Business, Education, History and Nursing collections from Ebsco.

Digital Rights Management

DRM is present but the database includes a library of over 200,000 DRM-free ebooks. For those ebooks with DRM restrictions, printing and copying is not always permitted and there are usually restrictions on printing and copying on those that do allow it, usually around 100 pages but sometimes less depending on the publisher.

Formats Available

Ebooks are available in both PDF and EPUB, depending on the title.

Downloads

Downloading is available but Adobe Digital Editions is required for titles with DRM-restrictions.

Accessibility Options

Alt text is available where permitted by the publisher.
You are able to change the colour and magnify available text.
The database includes a "Skip to Content" button to aid screen readers.
A read aloud feature is available for HTML articles.

N.B.

Screen readers will find it easier if the text is downloaded.
EBSCOhost recommends using Adobe Reader to convert articles if PDF is the only available format.
DRM-restrictions can make it difficult for the effective use of screen readers. EBSCOhost recommends using DRM-free content where available. EBSCOhost also recommends downloading chapters or sections if you use screen readers as this can help you bypass the DRM restrictions.
An account and Adobe Digitals Edition is required for full-book downloads where DRM applies.

Hints and Tips

It is recommended that you use EPUB where available. If PDF is the only option, we recommended that you save the pages (of which there is a limit of 100 pages) and use the read aloud feature with the saved pages.
Some PDF files come as an image file rather than a text file. A screen reader will struggle to read the text if the PDF file is an image as there is no text for the screen reader to grab. In such instances, it is recommended that you use the EPUB format.

VLeBooks This link opens in a new window
Searchable access to a small collection of full-text electronic books (e-books), across a range of subject areas.

Digital Rights Management

The majority of titles have DRM allowances with the restrictions on copying and printing usually limited to between 10%-50%.

Formats Available

Formats include PDF, read online HTML and EPUB (where available)

Downloads

Entire books are available to download as an EPUB, although Adobe Digital Editions is required if you wish to do so.

Accessibility Options

DRM-free PDF downloads are unavailable, but the platform itself has accessibility settings where you can set preferences for font and contrast. For further information see this VLeBooks Accessibility Statement.

N.B.

Issue: NVDA is not compatible without the use of Adobe Digital Editions
The database comes with its own built-in text-to-speech
VLeBooks recommends you use the platform with the "read online" feature as this allows you access to various features designed to enhance the user experience.

Hints and Tips

Entire books can be downloaded through a loan system (usually of 1 or 3 days) but there does not seem to be a limit to how many books you can loan at a single time. Not every book is available to loan but many are.
The built-in text-to-speech feature works well and adapts well to unconventional layouts.

Sage Catalyst This link opens in a new window
A collection of full-text premium social science textbooks from Sage.

Digital Rights Management

Includes DRM-restrictions which do not allow copying online but copying and printing is available when the text is downloaded.

Formats Available

Available as a PDF only

Downloads

There is a 5 page download limit for eBooks, although there are no restrictions on the number of downloadable 5 page excerpts.

Accessibility Options

Options include the ability to: change font and colour, a zoom feature and the ability to navigate using only the users keyboard or through the use of speech recognition software.

N.B.

Includes a "Skip to Content" button
Issue: PDFs downloaded from the platform are not tagged for reading order, and so will follow the visual order. This causes an issue where the page header and footer is read on each page. Additionally, pull-outs and sidebars will be inserted mid-section, rather than in a more logical location.
Issue: PDFs are also missing the ability to use alt text or long descriptions, making the reading of images difficult
Issue: The PDF excerpt lacks the mechanisms in place to help create a table of contents for easier navigation

Hints and Tips

Whilst there does not seem to be a download limit, the user is only able to download 5 pages at a time. You have to refresh the document after every 5 page download in order to be able to download another 5 pages.
We recommended using the in-built text-to-speech feature as attempting to use a screen reader has been shown to be very difficult.