Audacity for blind users

Current Audacity release
The Audacity developers have significantly improved screen reader and keyboard accessibility in the last few years. You can always get the latest 2.0.x version of Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/.

A very important feature of current Audacity is the ability to fully manipulate the selection using the keyboard.

Screen reader access works very well on Windows and Mac OS X but still needs further development on Linux. Please read the Accessibility page in the Manual for full information about Audacity's keyboard and screen reader accessibility.

Please read the "Free Screen Readers" section below for links to free screen readers.

Documentation and mailing lists
Further help is at hand if you need it.


 * There is an Audacity4blind mailing list for "blind people helping each other use Audacity". The list archive is at http://www.freelists.org/archive/audacity4blind/ and you can subscribe at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi/l=audacity4blind. The subscription is a somewhat complex three-stage process:
 * Enter the e-mail address you want to subscribe with at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi/l=audacity4blind, leaving the password field blank
 * Wait for an e-mail that contains an activation link, then click that link
 * In the web page that you come to, click the "Subscribe" button under the "Available Commands" list on the right.


 * A Guide to using Audacity 2.0.5 with the commercial JAWS screen reader for Windows, by David Bailes. It includes tips for navigating Audacity 2.0.5 without the mouse which should be helpful to users on all operating systems.

Tips for blind users
Some of this content may only be relevant to legacy 1.2 versions of Audacity.


 * Keyboard Shortcuts
 * Selecting
 * Running Effects
 * Mono to Stereo
 * Panning
 * Preferences
 * Other tips

Free Screen Readers

 * NVDA for Windows. This works well with current Audacity versions and also with legacy 1.2 versions.
 * VoiceOver built-in screen reader for OS X. Audacity 2.0.1 onwards works well with VoiceOver. Audacity versions before 2.0.1 had no explicit support for VoiceOver and very little of the Audacity interface will be read.
 * Orca for Linux/Unix. As of GNOME 2.16, Orca is a part of the GNOME platform, so is already provided by default on a number of operating system distributions, including Open Solaris, Fedora and Ubuntu. It does not work with the KDE environment. Orca works quite well with the current Audacity, including reading most of the toolbar controls.