[Trainer-Talk] Is NVDA enough for the blind?

Thu Jun 4 15:41:53 UTC 2026

All:

In addition to the examples provided by Curtis, I would also add that JAWS has a very powerful scripting language which, when properly used, can dramatically increase the accessibility and usability of some nonstandard applications. For employers who rely on custom applications, this can be a game changer for individuals who need efficient access to information in an employment setting. To the best of my knowledge, this is not something currently available with NVDA.
Finally, as an individual who has a lot of experience using both JAWS and NVDA, I have found creating visually appealing presentations, in both PowerPoint and Google Slides is quite difficult with NVDA. JAWS has several tools which makes this task much more manageable.
While I appreciate all of the amazing work by NVDA Access, this tool is not always the best match for individuals in a competitive employment setting. If the user is just working with MS Office applications, excluding PowerPoint, NVDA will certainly meet the need.
Just my thoughts.
Thanks.
Jim

From: Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Curtis Chong via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2026 10:25 AM
To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Curtis Chong <chong.curtis at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Trainer-Talk] Is NVDA enough for the blind?

Greetings everyone: Permit me to weigh in on this issue. Since the primary goal of the vocational rehabilitation program in the United States is to achieve an employment outcome--that is, for clients
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Greetings everyone:

Permit me to weigh in on this issue.

Since the primary goal of the vocational rehabilitation program in the United States is to achieve an employment outcome--that is, for clients to obtain employment--what I am about to say centers around this objective and is by no means intended to disparage anything that NVDA is doing for people who are not involved with vocational rehabilitation--either as a consumer or a rehabilitation professional. Also bear in mind that what I am saying today is based on my current experience with both JAWS and NVDA--which, for me, is considerable.

1.       All licensed users of JAWS can receive free over-the-phone technical support. While this support leaves something to be desired at times, the fact is that it does exist and is an integral part of what you get with JAWS.

2.       JAWS has a feature called JAWS Tandem, which enables trainers and support personnel to link their computers to that of the end user. JAWS Tandem is built into JAWS and does not require anything extra to be installed. NVDA has a similar feature, but that feature, as of today, is something that you have to go out and get--at both ends of the connection.

3.       In work environments, it is oftentimes necessary to communicate with colleagues with multiple comment threads imbedded in documents. Today, JAWS works with what Microsoft calls “modern comments” in Word while NVDA is less flexible in this regard--to the point where one I.T. professional told me that his/her productivity was enhanced by JAWS’ ability to handle multiple comment threads in Word.

4.       Without any add-ons or installation of additional software, JAWS makes it possible for the end user to perform optical character recognition (OCR) against files that containing images of text. With PDF files, you can use JAWS to extract all of the text from a PDF file containing text images with one simple command.

5.       JAWS has a feature built in called Picture Smart, with which you can ask for a general or more detailed description of any graphical object that is on a web page or stored on your computer--all with no additional software needing to be installed.

6.       For those of us who like to ensure that our documents are 100% correct and look professional, JAWS has a feature built in called the “Text Analyzer.” According to JAWS Help:

“When editing a document using speech only, inconsistencies such as unmatched parentheses, unintentional format changes, extra whitespace, and stray or unspaced punctuation can often be missed. Text Analyzer is a tool that notifies you of these errors in your document by using a spoken message or WAV file. You can configure JAWS to announce discrepancies by count, by description, or by sound while proofreading the document by line, sentence, paragraph, or Say All command. Braille users will benefit from this since a sound can be emitted before the user has time to read the entire line looking for errors.”

In other words, we should not forget that the acronym JAWS means (and continues to mean) Job Access With Speech.

Sincerely,

Curtis Chong

________________________________

From: Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org>> on behalf of Quentin Christensen via Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>>

Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2026 6:04 AM

To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>>

Cc: Quentin Christensen <quentin at nvaccess.org<mailto:quentin at nvaccess.org>>

Subject: Re: [Trainer-Talk] Is NVDA enough for the blind?

Hi everyone,

Broadly speaking, NVDA does all the same things Jaws does - One might do a

specific task in a particular program better, sure - but that goes both

ways - one specific thing might work better with Jaws (please do let us

know so we can improve) and something else might work better with NVDA.

Both use very similar keys for many things in fact.  There is a document

the community created on switching from Jaws to NVDA with comparisons of

keystrokes and how features work:

https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA

The argument that NVDA does not work as well in certain contexts is largely

from two things:

1) Someone used to Jaws who is much more familiar with that screen reader

and the slight differences in how it work in a particular setting.

2) A specific instance where Jaws MAY work better, perhaps than using NVDA

with the default settings (and that may be because the default settings are

different, or because they changed the equivalent setting in Jaws many

moons ago).

If you are familiar with Jaws and start using NVDA, then of course the

things which jump out to you are not going to be the things which work the

same, but rather the things which are different, and humans tend to resist

change, so it's easy to see that as "Ah the new thing isn't as good", when

it may just be that you need to press a different key or that NVDA reads

something slightly differently.

The misconception that NVDA may not be adopted due to being open source is

100% false.  We have a page on our website devoted to information for

corporate users.  I've linked specifically here to the section on open

source: https://www.nvaccess.org/corporate-government/#OpenSource

Governments around the world, including the US government, not only

encourage, but mandate the use of open source.  The link on that page to

the US government goes here:

https://digital.gov/resources/requirements-for-achieving-efficiency-transparency-and-innovation-through-reusable-and-open-source-software/

which encourages using open source and also stipulates that for developed

code, at least 20% must be made available as open source.

While our page addresses a range of security concerns (because these are

important for ANY software to address), the concerns around open source

tend to be more around whether NVDA has support.  The answer is yes!  We

have telephone support available as well as training material, and we

regularly release new versions of NVDA.  And in terms of security, there

are various options in NVDA, including a locked down "Secure" mode.

Much of the misconception around NVDA is due to the price.  If you're

looking at two screen readers and one costs thousands of dollars, and the

other is free, it's easy to be fooled that the more expensive one must be

better.  All price tells you is who the developers chose to burden with the

cost.  NV Access understands that many blind people around the world cannot

afford multi-thousand dollar programs just to have the same level of access

to technology as their sighted peers, so we explored other ways of

funding.  NVDA works with companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon,

Adobe & others.  They believe in what we do and help fund us to ensure that

NVDA remains free long term (we're at 20 years and counting this year!).

In return, we share our expertise in accessibility with them, which helps

improve the accessibility of programs everyone uses - even if you don't use

NVDA.  We are also a registered charity and accept donations (tax

deductible in Australia at least - we are currently exploring the path

towards 501c3 in the US - follow our social media or blog if you're

interested as no doubt we will share news loudly as and when anything new

becomes available there).

For users coming across from Jaws, even if you are primarily a Jaws user

and just want to explore NVDA as a second option, I'd encourage you to

start with the switching from Jaws guide:

https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/wiki/SwitchingFromJawsToNVDA - and yes you

can happily have both installed at once - I just wouldn't have both

actively running and speaking at once.  Exit one before the starting the

other.

For new screen reader users, we would recommend the "Quick Start Guide",

which comes as the first main section in the User Guide:

https://download.nvaccess.org/documentation/userGuide.html#NVDAQuickStartGuide

If you would like more formal training material - either for yourself or

teaching a class, we would recommend starting with "Basic Training for

NVDA" from our shop, and if you are interested in Microsoft Office as well,

then the "NVDA Productivity Bundle" is a great deal as it comes with

telephone support (also available separately) at a discount over buying it

all.  All available in our shop: https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Oh, and for those who are coming from Jaws and love Eloquence, you CAN get

Eloquence for NVDA.  The legal option is the SAPI 5 version from Code

Factory (also available from Tiflotecnia) both of which you can find on our

Extra Voices page: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/wiki/ExtraVoices

Kind regards

Quentin

On Thu, Jun 4, 2026 at 9:05 PM Christopher Murphy via Trainer-Talk <

trainer-talk at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>> wrote:

> Good morning,

>         While I agree that NVDA is a great program and that it can perform

> most tasks with add-ons, Jaws has far more features and seems to be more

> stable and easier to teach. Because there are now various license options

> available such as home annual among other Jaws has become more affordable

> for someone who doesn't require a professional license. State services

> should be able to justify this without an issue however I have seen some

> circumstances that they won't just because they want to save some money or

> the person's goal may be different. While I can get by using NVDA when I

> need to, I find that my experience with Jaws has been much better because

> of its integration with so many different programs and applications. Jaws

> is a much more popular screen reader then NVDA and doesn't require so much

> effort just to make it perform tasks because of the apparent need to make

> sure that it has add-ons for applications and programs. The ability to

> customize settings based on user preference along with the updates every

> single year in my opinion make Jaws more highly utilized then NVDA

> especially in places of employment.

>

>

>

>

> --

> Christopher Murphy

> Email:

> cjohnmurph at gmail.com<mailto:cjohnmurph at gmail.com>

>

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> -----Original Message-----

> From: Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Showe

> Trela via Trainer-Talk

> Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2026 5:48 AM

> To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology <

> trainer-talk at nfbnet.org<mailto:trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>>

> Cc: Showe Trela <myshowe86 at gmail.com<mailto:myshowe86 at gmail.com>>

> Subject: [Trainer-Talk] Is NVDA enough for the blind?

>

> Hello fellow trainers.

> I am writing this email to ask you all this question because I want to

> educate myself and be a better AT trainer, looking at all sides and

> choosing what is best for the individuals I instruct. Here in Minnesota,

> state services are telling us that NVDA should be enough for blind people

> to use and using JAWS is no longer ideal and might need further

> justification. In states like Virginia and Delaware and Colorado, I am

> hearing the same tune. I am also hearing other AT instructors supporting

> this claim that people don't really need to learn JAWS and NVDA is enough.

> Admitedly, I am way more proficient with JAWS and can get by on NVDA when I

> have to. Can you all chime in and share your thoughts on this? I have

> always thought that because NVDA is open source software, workplaces will

> sometimes balk at installing this screen reader. Although free.99 is always

> good for employers. I understand that NVDA add-ons make it so much more

> efficient but I have wondered about workplaces allowing for those

> installations as well. Can you all enlighten me on this matter? Thank you.

>

> Showe

> Sent from my iPhone

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--

Quentin Christensen

Training and Support Manager

NV Access

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Celebrating 20 years of NVDA

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