Hi,
What I do when I want to copy off large amounts of text from web
pages, or read items that VoiceOver won't read in Safari (because the
text is in non-Roman characters -- for example, mixed Cyrillic script
for Russian, or Greek characters used in an equation) is use a
keyboard shortcut for a service menu option to send the selection to
TextEdit. You'll need to set up your Services preferences and define
a shortcut key. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard
Shortcuts and then select "Preferences". Then check the shortcut you
want to use -- in this case, "New TextEdit Window Containing
Selection", and assign a shortcut key combination to this. I don't
want to try giving exact instructions for Snow Leopard, but if you
want extra help, this tutorial web page gives the details of how to
customize services for Snow Leopard (since I set my definition up
under Leopard):
http://smokingapples.com/software/tutorials/services-snow-leopard-explained-download/
You can select any part of a web page, but if you want everything,
just press Command-A and then issue whatever shortcut key you assigned
to "New TextEdit Window Containing Selection", and it will all show up
in a TextEdit window. This is really efficient if you just want the
text content, because it doesn't use up resources trying to copy, and
strips out extraneous images -- unlike using copy and paste, which has
much more impact on VO use of resources. If I just want content, I
also usually have TextEdit set up to use plain text windows, but
that's a detail.
TextEdit is the best app for examining non-English characters (or non-
standard English characters), so I use TextEdit a lot when I want to
work with other languages. Back in Safari 3, when we had to use
WebKit to get around some of the underlying WebKit bugs -- like having
to reload the page for certain sites in order to expose content to
VoiceOver -- I would just press Command-A and my shortcut for "New
TextEdit Window Containing Selection" and all the content would
immediately go to a TextEdit window where VO would start reading
immediately, and I could navigate as I liked. If I sent this to a
TextEdit window that was in Rich Text Format instead of plain text
(set up in my TextEdit preferences), I could even click on links in
the TextEdit window.
This is a posted suggestion that never seems to be used on this list.
I usually answer posts in the same thread as they're posted, and in a
lot of cases with new users the questions get posted in an existing
thread with a different topic. I realize from Erik's comments about
how he deletes threads by topics (and others have posted in the past
about the problem not creating new threads for questions, and/or using
inappropriate subject lines), that a lot of my posted answers just
never get read because of this. Since someone on another, lower
volume, list found this suggestion useful when he switched to a Mac
over a year ago, I'll mention it again.
For short passages, I use VO-Shift-C to copy VO's last phrase to the
clip board. For longer passages, I select and use the Services menu
shortcut to send my selection to a TextEdit window. I don't have to
paste anything.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
erik burggraaf wrote:
What about control option shift C? This will copy the last thing
voice over said to the clip board. It's pretty much the only way I
copy things off web pages, unless the pages them selves are poorly
designed.
It works like this.
Hear something that you want to rip off the page like a phone
number, list of directions, or any block of text read to you by
voiceover.
Press control option shift C.
Paste the text into your email, word document or what ever with
command V.
That really works about 80 per sent of the time or more. It's not
great for copying huge chunks but it's better than all this
interacting and vo entering and so on. I think realisticly that all
though the reasons why webpages behave this way are good ones, all
that business to copy and paste information from the web to another
applocation is inelegant.
Best,
erik burggraaf
A+ certified technician and user support consultant.
Phone: 888-255-5194
Email: e...@erik-burggraaf.com
On 2010-02-11, at 8:58 AM, Ricardo Walker wrote:
Hello,
I've been a Mac user for almost 2 years, and I personally don't
find the web browsing experience on my Mac using Safari with
voiceover to be on par with that of internet explorer and Jaws.
For example, Look at the steps you explained to highlight and copy
text "If you interact with text, use VO-shift-return, you can
initiate marking of text and use VO-cursor keys to navigate and
mark that text, then use VO-shift-return to stop marking the text.
FInally command-c will copy that text for you to paste where you
choose. You can also interact with text and use command-a to
highlight all text you can then copy..." On I.E. you would just
use shift and the arrows or some function of navigation commonly
used throughout the Operating system. In Snow Leopard one should
be able to use the arrows by them selves to navigate a web page and
with shift to select. This is not the case most of the time. The
folks didn't include this functionality into snow leopard by
accident or just to appease windows converts in my opinion. They
realized that the previous method was just a pain, not to mention
labor intensive in regards to the task actually trying to be
accomplished. I use Dom mode and sometimes voiceover indeed skips
over chunks of information. I am not saying that Safari with
Voiceover isn't serviceable but, by no means in my opinion is it as
dependable as I.E. with Jaws. And this is coming from someone who
Uses their Mac as their primary computer.
On Feb 11, 2010, at 7:48 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
I think you need to take some additional time to learn how best to
use Safari with VOiceOver. I've been using the Mac for five years
now and although like any browser and screen reader, Safari and VO
has issues, but certainly not to the degree you seem to be
having. Reading line by line is no problem at all and copying
information to the clipboard is again, no problem. There is lots
of information on how to accomplish both tasks and perhaps a
little research on your part will help. I'll give you a tip. If
you interact with text, use VO-shift-return, you can initiate
marking of text and use VO-cursor keys to navigate and mark that
text, then use VO-shift-return to stop marking the text. FInally
command-c will copy that text for you to paste where you choose.
You can also interact with text and use command-a to highlight all
text you can then copy. You coming from windows and using IE may
find DOM mode more like your browsing experience under windows
using a windows-based screen reader. If your using Groups mode,
you are going to find the navigation of the page not to be linear
as is provided by DOM mode. Groups mode gives a more accurate
representation of how the page is laid out unlike DOM mode.
Once you have used Safari a while, I think you will find it will
meet your needs just fine. I am not so sure that even if Firefox
is made accessible, you will find the browsing experience
significantly different. I think what you will find is some
differences in browsing experience as far as how some sites
behave, but assuming Mozilla leverages the accessibility hooks of
VO, the navigation will likely be quite similar.
On Feb 11, 2010, at 6:59 AM, Lynn Schneider wrote:
Oh I would so love to have an alternative to Safari! I'm a
fairly recent switcher and I don't miss Windows at all except
that I totally and absolutely miss the great accessibility I had
with IE. I hate the fact that I can't read line by line or copy
web page text to the clipboard and he disturbing thing with VO and
Safari is that I find that whole parts of pages are not read at
all. I think Safari is the app I most dislike on the Mac.
Everything else about the Mac is wonderful.
On Feb 10, 2010, at 1:02 PM, Chris Blouch wrote:
Looking forward to trying out Firefox with VO working someday.
FF has really good ARIA support so it would be nice to have a
browser on the Mac that works well with this standard. Safari
currently is weak.
CB
E.J. Zufelt wrote:
Good morning,
This morning I posted a new blog article on my site: First
Glance at Firefox Accessibility on OS X Snow Leopard, which can
be accessed at http://tinyurl.com/ygkfqoj
Thanks,Everett
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