screen readers

A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. This interpretation is then represented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille output. Screen readers are a form of assistive technology (AT) potentially useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, or learning disabled, often in combination with other AT such as screen magnifiers.

A person's choice of screen reader is dictated by many factors, including platform, cost (even to upgrade a screen reader can cost hundreds of U.S. dollars), and the role of organizations like charities, schools, and employers. Screen reader choice is contentious: differing priorities and strong preferences are common.

Increasingly, screen readers are being bundled with operating system distributions. Recent versions of Microsoft Windows come with the rather basic Narrator, while Apple Mac OS X includes VoiceOver, a more feature-rich screen reader. The console-based Oralux Linux distribution ships with three screen-reading environments: Emacspeak, Yasr and Speakup. The open source GNOME desktop environment long included Gnopernicus and now includes Orca.

There are also open source screen readers, such as the Linux Screen Reader for GNOME and NonVisual Desktop Access for Windows.

The most widely used screen readers[1] are separate commercial products: JAWS from Freedom Scientific, Window-Eyes from GW Micro, and Hal from Dolphin Computer Access being prominent examples in the English-speaking market