JAWS for Windows 7.0

Freedom Scientific has been endowing visually impaired users with greater access to the computer and information since the mid-1990s through its JAWS software for Windows screen reader. Providing speech access output, JAWS supports various refreshable Braille displays in several languages. Standard versions of JAWS are compatible with Windows 98, ME, and XP Home as is JAWS Professional with Windows NT 4.0, 2000, and XP Professional.

Simple and easily installed, JAWS 7.0 can also be accessed directly from the CD as required or from the website www.freedomscientific.com. If needed though, a Freedom Scientific technical support representative can guide you through installation in a chargeable call.

The latest version has the Internet License Manager (ILM), ensuring that authorization need not be installed from a floppy disk. Users who have the ILM CD and access to the Internet can easily install their JAWS authorization. Firewall settings may have to be readjusted though. Another new feature you get, for additional cost, is compatibility with a Dongle - hardware connected to a computer’s parallel or USB port or from a USB thumb-drive. Providing portability, Windows Narrator must be run first as JAWS temporarily loses voice on a Dongle. If updating an earlier version of JAWS, easily merge configuration (JCF) files, dictionary (JDF) files, graphics (JGF) files, and voice settings with the Merge Utility option.

Other than the program and ILM authorization CDs (Braille and large-print labels) all documentation and support are available on the CD or website. JAWS training materials, manuals, and help features can be read with the built-in DAISY reader or by using the CD in any standard DAISY reader. A very useful and standard feature, JAWS online help system provides a keyboard help mode that helps with commands specific to JAWS as well as context-sensitive help, hot-key help, and application-specific help.

Working well with Word 2003, JAWS reads documents, menus, and dialog boxes efficiently. Freedom Scientifics’ JAWS 7.0 ensures the Web is more accessible and user friendly. The new features work not only on the Web, but in most standard applications, such as Word and Adobe Acrobat/Reader.

Several new features in support of Word and Excel include navigation quick-keys that move easily and efficiently through a document’s headings, tables, form fields, pages, and sections and automatic announcement of formatted paragraphs that are bulleted and numbered. A greatly appreciated Excel feature is that on pressing the Insert-Tab key twice, we obtain information specific to a cell, including text, cell height and width, font specifics, and number format.

Added advantages are the Custom Label feature, used to label form fields in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat/Reader, and the Skim Reading feature, to browse through long documents by reading the first part of each paragraph. These are definable and adjustable to each user’s preference.

Thoroughly tested, JAWS is now also Mozilla Firefox (version 1.5 beta or later) compliant and all of JAWS features — navigation quick-keys and Internet browsing — are executed well. This is a major improvement over JAWS 6.2 support of Firefox. In addition to this, Insert-H and Insert-F1 provided detailed help information on JAWS support of Firefox.

All in all, Freedom Scientific has come out with a quality product. Bugs that need to be corrected in the next version include the occasionally inactive Spell Check — misspelled words were not recognized except with the use of Insert-F7. Other minor hitches at time of testing included JAWS inability to scroll through a document. In Word 2000, JAWS hung and speech support was unavailable. The dialog box was then accessed with Windows Narrator which helped restart the document, Word, and JAWS. Cycling through open programs and files, using Alt-Tab however causes JAWS to frequently lose speech.  

Source: AFB