grudging respect for narrator, but…

You can also make it sound like eloquence if you like, you'll have to look into it though because it's not exactly legal.

For all Narrator commands & touch gestures, see:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/appendix-b-narrator-keyboard-commands-and-touch-gestures-8bdab3f4-b3e9-4554-7f28-8b15bd37410a

In addition, Narrator+ Space (scan mode) is the equivalent to virtual PC cursor.

Narrator is this little thing that you forget until you really need and depending on what you need it for 9/10 times it works surprisingly well, well except for command line stuff where even chromevox is better.
When my hp laptop started to have weird issues everywhere and I haven't still reset it yet as I have my mac I used narrator for excel and it worked like a charm.

Not even NVDA or Jaws support the kind of support Narrator for touch gestures. I can't figure out how to scrolle down or up on webpages with NVDA or Jaws, with narrator however, it's delightfully smartphone like experience.
I can't wait to get my hands on a Surface tablet, and see how Narrator feels with that Touchscreen and arm powered processer.

We've certainly come a long way since 2017. While development has slowed considerably since 11 was released, it's continuing to improve. We just got a feature similar to speech history in JAWS/NVDA. It's called Speech Recap. I believe the official debut will be in the May patches for 11 23H2 and 24H2 on the 13th, but they're already in those releases if you install the latest non-security updates.
Narrator will also be gaining the ability to describe images using AI, but I'm not sure this is quite ready for the stable releases. It unfortunately requires you have a processor capable of running Microsoft's Copilot+ features.

I've liked coPilot ever since I spoke to it near the start of the year, so this should be interesting.

If i could get narrator sounding like jaws/NVDA with eloquence, I might consider using it over NVDA, or I'd at least feel a lot more relaxed using it.

Do you know if that's something that can or will be possible in the future?

The new voices sound nice but i'm just so used to eloquence.

Who remembers Sam? That husky voice?

Oh no,... I might like eliquence but no, I'd never go back to a voice like that.

All I can think of when I think of that voice is.... For ground window.... Alt....

Ah, old xp narrator, it was so... broken.

No. Windows 7 narrator was the textbook definition of a so called screen reader, reading everything from left to right up to down with little control infos, no structure, nothing. But it was reading the screen! :)

There was soooo much emotion, it wasn't the flattest voice in existance at all, noooo.

As for voices, really? Have y'all not added the natural neural engine voices? They're incredible, IMO, and very responsive.
Narrator doesn't play well with Chrome. Use Edge--it has some nice features, like a reader view (F9) and reading the page aloud (control--shift-u). Takes some setting up in the preferences to get the shopping bloat removed, though.

I mmaligned Narrator greatly a couple of weeks ago in my review of the Surface Laptop, but I'm trying it out again and haven't screamed at it more than a few times today.. Two of my gripes are thatt, after I've put in time bending its keyboard shortcuts to my will, it destroys it with the next update, and there's no way to save it. I saved the registry branch, in case that works. Second, there are a pack of chipmonks eager to jump in when there are text attributes. Headings go up in pitch, text attributes in this edit box go total Alvin unless I lower the verbosity with Narrator+V.
So, yeah, lots to get used to, and several quirks/bugs. They really do add a bunch of features every year, though.

The point at which it leaped forward was when they hired Mic and Jamie of NVAccess fame to work on it. I heard that in an interview. I know another screen reader developer who worked on it, too.

I would like to see that interview. Do you have a link?
I think Microsoft internally has so many software engineers that it seems weird that they would ask NVAccess to fix it for them. Granted that lot of Narrator's current form seems hevyly inspired from NVDA and Jaws, but, wouldn't NVDA also adopt the things Narrator does better, touch-screen support for example?
Any ways, Microsoft is playing a weird game here, nudging us towards Copilot PCs, while other screen-readers like NVDA plan to launch their own AI description feature soon, and I doubt if their features would be device dependant. Although NVAccess does mention in their future plans that as much as possible, they would like to utilize local AI models.

I think If you install ESpeak Synthesizer from Github, and then change to Espeak from Narrator settings, I think it will very much sound like NVDA. No idea about Elequance.
Again, I've never bothered to change Narrator to Espeak, it's modern voices sound so good that I went on chasing the other way around, making those voices work for NVDA, which by the way, totally possible with another Github project, but probably leegally in gray area, so won't provide exact links here, to keep the forum gods scylent.

if you know your jaws serial number just go to the activation licence manager website for jaws just google it, and it should, with your serial number show the full licence authorisation code. to delete jaws off the computer takes some work so not sure how you managed that.

Those who don't know the Corporate IT bureocracy would say, fight tooth and nale to get that extention. Those who do know, would say, use whatever that works, on the side, keep chasing.
Best of luck.
I just tried turning on Narrator on my machine, it's not doing so no matter what. Tried keyboard shortcut as well as the settings toggle.

Of all the things to block regarding software, you would think accessibility services would not be one of them. If you can get the powers that be to allow it on your work machine, however, you'd likely have a better time of things. Narrator seems to shine with Excel.

To control your mouse pointer with the Numeric Keypad, do the following:
1. From your Windows Desktop, press 'Windows Key' + 'i'.
2. In Windows Settings, from the search field, type 'mouse keys' and press Enter.
3. Check the box to 'Enable Mouse Keys'.
4. Adjust settings as needed once you have performed step 3 above.
5. You should now have control over the mouse with the Numeric Keypad.

More information below:
https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/how-to-use-your-keyboard-to-control-the-mouse-pointer-in-windows-11

HTH. :)

To me, narrator is frustrating because of how inconsistent it still is. Case in point, go to youtube and perform a search. Then move to the first search result with the H key to focus the heading. Although the heading also contains a link, narrator will say "item has no primary action" when pressing enter on it. Other times, narrator properly indicates headings that contain links. It's like Jekyll and Hyde, you never know which one is going to show up. I also notice similar inconsistencies when navigating by items in scan mode which, incidentally, is the default. In certain cases, narrator will truncate items and not read them in their entirety. I have seen this on forums where posts are long. Narrator will stop part way through, and pressing the down arrow moves to the next item instead of reading the remainder of the text. Finally, one more issue is that focus randomly jumps all over the place on certain web pages. For instance, try reading news articles on the MSN web site. If any of them have a video ad half way through the article, narrator will jump all the way to the top of the page after reading all the video player controls. I've posted all of these bugs multiple times using the feedback app on windows, and I've even got a machine running the latest insider builds of windows in the hope to help test and fix narrator accordingly. Unfortunately, many of these issues appear to take a back seat to the addition of new features. I do think the recent addition of the battery strength command and the speech viewer window are neat, but narrator has a long way to go performance wise before I can confidently use it as anything more than a curiosity.

I am not having the issue mentioned above with YouTube. What browser are you using? I'm using Firefox here and following your steps, after pressing 'h' to get to the results after performing a search, I can press enter and go right into that video.
I don't think I have experienced the truncating thing, so I cannot say whether or not it's an issue for me or not.

I think you'll go back to jaws or NVDA, Narrator is great but it's not job ready as far as I understand. Xl may work, I'm not sure, but isn't it better to have a screen reader you're used to and to keep your job, than use narratorwhere you could lose it in the end because of inaccessibility?

Does narrator work while NVDA is running?

It does but I don't know if the keyboard shortcuts would clash.

Yes, and while Brad has a point, about the keyboard commands clashing, you can set up a hot key with NVDA, to mute speech, and then simply use narrator while NVDA sits in the background.
I do this all of the time for common tasks. For me, it's the NVDA key plus S, and I cannot remember if that is a default hot key or one I assigned myself, but while in laptop keyboard mode, it will cycle between speech and no speech. It's quite handy to be able to mute NVDA, Toggle narrator for something, then disable narrator and reenable speech with NVDA, and continue on my day.

Just some food for thought… 😉

, is the keyboard command for "bypassing" keystrokes that may clash.

I’m using Microsoft edge with narrator. Can you try going to YouTube and using my steps above? I would be interested to see if you can reproduce this issue.
In your experience, how does narrator work with other browsers these days?Last time I checked Firefox and even chrome, some of the key strokes to move by heading, link, etc. didn’t work properly in other browsers. Have they fixed this now? I remember that in chrome when I went to the address bar, scan would not automatically turn off as it does with edge.

Narrator kind of works on youtube using firefox but it messes up and sometimes h works , other times it doesn't, I honestly can't be bothered to report it, I probably should but I don't use narrator on a daily bassess, now if Microsoft bought NVDA or Something like that and had that instead of narrator, that would honestly be amazing!

Ok I followed your steps with both Microsoft Edge and Firefox.
Results:

Edge: Could not access the first video link to save my life.

Firefox: Had no problem clicking first item in search results list, I did have to manually start the video, but that is likely personal preferences as I *hate* videos automatically starting on webpages.

Final thoughts, forget Edge, use Firefox. Win!

Edit, forgot to mention I wrote this post using Narrator with the Jenny Neural English voice.

Given microsoft's, spotty record when it comes to accessibility, if, hypothetically speaking they bought NVDA, I'd honestly be... really skeptical they wouldn't just, leave it to collect dust and not update it; at least in no meaningful way, to be honest. I mean, it’s 2025 and people seldom use narrator; for good reason; it’s nowhere close to the competition, I.e, NVDA or jaws. It has a long way to go, and... Frankly, microsoft isn't, in my opinion, putting as much effort into that as they should. I wouldn't trust them with NVDA for sure. So yeah microsoft buying NVDA... That would be dreadful, tbh.

I was kind of thinking NVaccess would merge with microsoft but now I think on it; that would probably never happen.

You know, I actualy have to disagree with you completely about narrator, whilst i'd not use it on a day to day bassess, it came from laughable to something that was very broken but worked in some settings windows to an actual screen reader so I'd not say microsoft failed at all, honestly; I'm looking forward to see where narrator goes in the next 5 or so years.

Then we have CoPilot, something i'm very impressed with, I updated my BeMyEyes app today only to find thatI was way behind on my CoPilot app and guess what? They've fixed all the issues I came across. Now i'm not completely sure if updating CoPilot in the app store does that on the Microsoft Edge side but either way, the issues I came across have been fixed so I do think microsoft is actuallly really good when it comes to accessibility, they didnt' used to be but they've impressed me so much over the last couple of years.

Valid. However, for a company of Microsoft’s size—i.e., a trillion-dollar corporation—you’d expect them not just to compete with NVDA and JAWS, but to surpass them, given the vast resources they have. That’s why I say they’re not doing enough. It took years for Narrator to even begin competing with third-party screen readers. Yes, progress is happening, but it’s nowhere near the level it should be if they were truly aiming to go toe-to-toe with the competition. And considering that NVDA and JAWS still outperform it by a wide margin, it’s clear Microsoft still has a long way to go.

The only reason why Narrator has to play catch up, is because of said screen reader companies in the first place.

rEADY TO GO BACK IN TIME WITH A HISTORY LESSON?

pART oNE:
https://www.chrishofstader.com/accessibility-and-nfbcs-more-questions-than-results/
pART tWO:
https://www.chrishofstader.com/the-foggy-third-party-screen-reader-issue-2/

hOPEFULLY MORE PEOPLE CAN PASS ALONG SAID HISTORY (WHICH SADLY IS SEEMING TO SLOWLY BEING LOST TO TIME.)

Being someone from the UK I don't get involved with all that blind comunity stuff, it's just not really done here compared to the US; so it baffled me to hear that the NFB were against beeping zebra crossings with twisty cones under them, we're blind and we need that accessibility to live, hang on! isn't j walking, or however its spelt, where you walk out in the road a chrime in the US or something? Another concept I find completely baffling, in every other country you just walk, if you're stupid enough to get hit by a car, that's on you, well; if that's the case, surely beeping crosswalks, I think you guys call them,, would benefit you hugely?

I hope for the NFB's sake; they've change their stance on this idea since that article was written.

Technically, jaywalking is illegal here. It is when one crosses a street in between crosswalks/intersections. It is about as enforced as spitting on the sidewalk is, these days, however.
One thing we blind folks do have to be aware of, no matter where/how we cross, our electric vehicles, such as the dreaded Prius. Those vehicles are so silent, that you literally cannot hear them as they are moving down the street. Which is why Best practices, are to cross at intersections with traffic control devices, such as crosswalks/traffic lights.

We do also have beeping/talking crosswalks as well, but they are few and far between.

Hth.

The problem with some of the beeping devices, at least the experience I had when I was in savannah during coledge was that yeah some of the crossings had the deeping sidewalks but, some, well, didn't talk or make noise. Some, however, worked and beeped but, not all.

Those articles were, enlightening.

Ah, ok. Well there's not always a zebra crossing thing, or whatever its called to cross at safely so I can see why that law isn't taken sireiously here.

I do agree that eletric cars aren't the best when it comes to blind people crossing the road, but they're meant to be better for the environment so I'll give them that, plus, they're just really smooth to ride in.

There was supposedly going to be a demand by the NFB, at least I think it was the NFB, for Prius is to have a device installed on them, so they would make a subtle, but obvious, noise as they travel down the street. For us blind folks.
No idea whatever happened with that…

Also, what is a "zebra" crossing…?

You're welcome! Also, NFB is highly against GPS devices/apps & talking signs/audible cross walks. FYI: Narrator worked extremely well with the "Classic" Microsoft Edge browser (before it became Chromium-based.) Thus has anyone contacted Microsoft's accessibility desk to let them know of the oversight? PS. Hmmm... I wonder what the NFB thinks of the BT Speak , though considering we don't have a Linux specific forum, maybe that discussion should go under the Assistive Technology forum? Ain't sure here...

Don't, even, get me started on the NFB. I am trying to be aware of the policies here at AppleVis, and if I start talking about NFB, I will likely get myself banned.
So with that, I shall refrain from any further comment on, that, particular subject. 😇

Oh alright, a zeh bruh, crossing, happy now mr british?

To click any video in the search results with narrator on Microsoft edge, press tab after reaching the result with h to make the system focus focus to the link. Then press enter and the video will activate.

Nope, now I'm just twice as confused….
Are you referring to stripes at crosswalks? I think that's just for people with eyesight. Doesn't really do anything for us blind folks. We do, however, have certain crosswalks with truncated domes. Do you guys have that over yonder? We tend to call that, "foot braille". 🫡

I am, those places have the boxes with the cones too, as far as i know.

I gotcha. Those truncated domes are nice for lining up inclines. However, like the talking/beeping crosswalks, they're only in select locations.
Going back to the ceh bra crosswalks, our roads over here have lines and patterns all over them. Don't know about you guys, but we have lines and stripes and bars and every other thing. In fact, the more impressive the road, e.g. 6 lane or 8 lane, the more the roads start to look like a giant barcode.
True story.