NVDA
Original author(s) Michael Curran
Developer(s) NVDA-Team
Initial release 2006 (2006)
Stable release
0.5 / March 26, 2008 (2008-03-26)
Preview release
0.6p3.2 / March 13, 2009; 8 years ago (2009-03-13)
Development status Alpha
Written in Python
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Available in Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, Galician, Croatian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Thai and Ukrainian
Type Screenreader
License GNU General Public License (Version 2)
Website http://www.nvda-project.org

NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open source, portable screen reader for Microsoft Windows. The project was begun by Michael Curran in 2006. Although development progress has been rapid, it should still be considered alpha software, but this does not mean that it is not usable. NVDA is programmed in Python. It currently eschews video intercept techniques in favour of working with accessibility frameworks such as Microsoft Active Accessibility, the new IAccessible2 or the Java Access Bridge. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

NVDA uses eSpeak [1] as its integrated speech synthesizer. Additionally it supports SAPI-Synthesizers. Output to Braille displays is supported officially from Version 0.6p3.

Support and Requirements[edit]

Besides general Windows functionality, NVDA works with WordPad, Notepad and Internet Explorer. It supports the basic functions of Outlook Express, Microsoft Word 2000/XP/2003 and Microsoft Excel 2000/XP/2003. NVDA was not tested with Microsoft Office 2007. The free office suite OpenOffice.org can be operated quite successfully. NVDA supports Mozilla Firefox (version 3 or higher) very well. Firefox is the recommended web browser for maximum barrier free web browsing. ARIA is also supported by NVDA so that in the future web applications can be better used by blind persons [2]. Support for eMail is provided with the upcoming Mozilla Thunderbird version 3.

NVDA works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Although only 32 bit operating versions are tested and officially supported, users have reported success with running on 64 bit versions of this operating systems. Windows 2000 is also reported to work, but is not supported and may not function properly. NVDA does not work with Windows 95/98/ME.

256 MB RAM and a computer with at least a 1.0 GHz CPU are required for optimal operation. NVDA works with slower CPUs but program start up and some actions may be slow.

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
  2. ^ http://www.marcozehe.de/category/aria/