Read an email with the screen reader

Step by step

1. Turn on the screen reader. Press Ctrl + Alt + Enter: hold down Ctrl and Alt, then press Enter. You hear "Screen reader on". (On a real PC the shortcut is Ctrl + the Windows logo key + Enter.)
2. Click the Start button! Look at the bottom of this practice computer: the dark strip there is its taskbar. In the middle of it, click the Start button (four blue squares). The main menu opens just above it. If you see two taskbars, use the one inside this page.
3. Click "Browser". In the menu that opened, click the "Browser" tile (a square with a small picture and its name under it): the app opens in its own window.
4. Open "Practice Mail". Click "Practice Mail" on the favorites bar (or type mail.practice.example in the address bar and press Enter).
5. Find Emily's message with the Down arrow. Press the Down arrow again and again, listening, until the reader says "Emily Carter, Photos from Sunday's cookout".
6. Open it: Enter. Press Enter: the message opens.
7. Read everything: reader key + R. Hold down Caps Lock and press R: the reader reads the whole window (in a web page: the whole page), from top to bottom. The blue box follows what it reads.
8. Stop the voice: press Ctrl. Press the Ctrl key once: the reader stops talking at once. Useful when it reads something long.
9. Close this window. You are done with this window, so close it: click the ✕ button at the top right corner of the "Browser" window (on its title bar, the strip at the top). The window disappears.
10. Turn the screen reader off. Press Ctrl + Alt + Enter again. You hear "Screen reader off".

These steps are written for SafePC, a pretend Windows-style computer in your web browser. On your own computer, the buttons and menus may look a little different, but the idea is the same.

More lessons in Screen reader

• Turn on the screen reader
• The on/off keyboard shortcut
• Move with Tab and Shift + Tab
• Open an app without the mouse
• Read a whole window, then stop
• Make it speak slower or faster