NVDA cheatsheet

Installation

NVDA can be downloaded from the site: nvda-project.org, please consider donating if you do use the software much, it is invaluable to users and developers, and is far cheaper than other Windows screen readers.

NVDA works best with Firefox, and also supports Internet Explorer.

Basics

Most NVDA-specific keyboard commands usually consist of pressing a particular key called the NVDA modifier key (INS by default), in conjunction with one or more other keys.

You can use the preferences (i.e. INS-n) to change to a laptop layout, which affects a few of the combinations below.

This page uses NVDA as the generic command, so by default NVDA = INS.

Stop speaking
control
Quit
NVDA-q
Enter focus mode (for typing in text)
Tab or move to a control that accepts text, and press enter.
Exit focus mode
esc
Refresh NVDA's cache of the page (virtual buffer)
NVDA-F5

Windows basic keyboard commands (like tab and enter) work as normal, NVDA commands work on top of those.

Say all
NVDA-down arrow
Next
down arrow
Previous
Desktop: up arrow
Laptop: control-NVDA-j
Left mouse click
Desktop: numpadDivide (twice quickly for double-click)
Laptop: NVDA-left arrow
Show elements list (e.g. headings, landmarks)
NVDA-F7

Navigation short cuts

These keys can be used in browse mode, and pressing shift modifies it to go backwards.
E.g. h goes to next heading, shift-h goes to the previous one.

More information

For more, please see the full user guide on http://nvda-project.org/