Screen reader

Common card · No. 217721

A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to blind people, and are also useful to people who are visually impaired, illiterate, learning-disabled, or otherwise have a print disability. Screen readers are software applications that attempt to convey what people with normal eyesight see on a display to their users via non-visual means, like text-to-speech, earcons, or a braille device. They do this by applying a wide variety of techniques that include, for example, interacting with dedicated accessibility APIs, using various operating system features (like inter-process communication and querying user interface properties), and employing hooking techniques. Microsoft Windows operating systems have included the Microsoft Narrator screen reader since Windows 2000, though separate products such as Freedom Scientific's commercially available JAWS screen reader and ZoomText screen magnifier...

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