This post is mainly for me, a person with low vision. I mean the whole blog is really self serving. I don’t have much faith in my memory and so want to create a way to remember JAWS easily so in the future I can re-pick it up. So to the fully blind, this post may be too focused on aiding those with vision and to those with good vision, you may find the pedagogical oppinions too strong. I do think the most important command for a sighted person to learn immediately is screen shade and if you are sighted and serious about wanting to learn JAWS you should use it.
Here are some basic beginning Jaws commands to get started with. I think probably the most important after screen shade is ctrl. It pauses JAWS’ speech. Note JAWS in JAWS commands means the JAWS key. If you are in laptop mode this will be the Caps Lock. On desktop this will be Insert.
Just Getting Started #
| JAWS Command | Keystroke |
|---|---|
| Screen Shade | JAWS + Spacebar, F11 |
| Temporarily Increase/Decrease Speech | Ctrl + Alt + PgUp/PgDown |
| Permanently Increase/Decrease Speech | Windows + Ctrl + Alt + PgUp/PgDown |
| Time | JAWS + F12 |
| Date | JAWS + F12 twice |
| Where am I? | JAWS + T |
| Where am I Focused? | JAWS + Tab |
| Pull Up the Jaws Menu | JAWS + J |
| Close JAWS | JAWS plus F4 |
| JAWS Serial Number (must be in JAWS menu) | JAWS PgDn |
JAWS help #
These are perhaps the most important commands after the aforementioned ones. To the budding JAWS learner (especially sighted learners), the best advice I can give is to commit all the commands on this page to memory and then start using JAWS immediately-if finances allow-not in 40 minute trial mode.
| JAWS Command | Keystroke |
|---|---|
| Keyboard Help | JAWS + 1 |
| Context Sesnsitive Help | JAWS + F1 |
| Applications Help | JAWS 2x[F1] |
| Hotkeys Help | JAWS + H |
| Windows Help | JAWS + W |
| Command Search | JAWS + Spacebar |
Contacting Freedom Scientific #
Email: support@FreedomScientific.com
Phone: (727) 803-8600