Transcription of Microsoft Outlook with JAWS Presentation

The below transcript is of an audio presentation relating to the JAWS scripts for Microsoft Outlook from Hartgen Consultancy. Every effort has been made to ensure the text accurately represents an exact copy of the audio presentation.

Brian Hartgen: Hello, and welcome to the second presentation relating to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook, along with our JAWS for windows scripts. Last time I detailed most of the features in relation to Microsoft Teams. In this presentation, I would like to focus on the smaller number of facilities that we have in Microsoft Outlook that go above and beyond those which JAWS offers by default.

Within our scripts, JAWS has the ability to place all the email attachments into a vertical list for easy navigation and opening. "Well, what's so wonderful about that?" You're probably thinking, "You can do that in Microsoft Outlook anyway, can't you? All you have to do is to focus in the body of the email message and press shift Tab once in order to get to the attachments area." Well, we find this especially helpful for two reasons. First of all, many people find it easier and more logical to work with vertical lists so that you use the up and the down arrow keys to move through the attachments.
However, in addition, if people Insert an attachment into the body of an email message, this is often rendered as a graphic to JAWS rather than appearing in the default Microsoft Outlook attachments area. The attachments list keystroke in our scripts provides access to all attachments regardless of their type. Once the file is accessed, it is stored in a folder of your choosing. And this means for example that if you have a graphical image such as a screenshot, you can then locate that file in your chosen folder and run the JAWS Picture Smart utility on that. Thus extracting the text from the image.

First of all, you need to set the location where the files are stored. And to do that, you focus on Outlook and press ALT+Windows+L for location.
JAWS: Set file location dialogue. Please Enter the full path of the folder where attachments will be saved such as C:\attachments then press Enter.
Brian Hartgen: You are asked, as you heard, to type the full path where the files will be saved to. Now this could be your documents folder or another location. It is suggested that if you are using your documents folder or something similar, you make a folder inside that called attachments so that you know where to locate these files. Otherwise, you could be searching for attachments in the middle of hundreds of documents. So, type the path of the folder, such as C:\attachments, and then press Enter.
JAWS: Complete.
Brian Hartgen: And JAWS says complete. That will be remembered across windows sessions.

To view all attachments in a message from within the body of it, press Insert with A or Control+Windows+A on a laptop computer. I have a message here that Lulu has sent to me.
JAWS: Unread attachment. Lulu Hartgen. A demonstration document with spelling errors, one of one.
Brian Hartgen: And that is the email containing the document. I'm going to press Enter.
JAWS: A demonstration document with spelling errors. Message HTML.
Brian Hartgen: Now this is not a graphical image or anything of that nature, but it will do just as well in order to demonstrate this feature. I am going to press Insert+A to bring up the attachment's list.
JAWS: Attachments List Dialogue. List 1 List View. Spelling Dot Docx. One of one.
Brian Hartgen: And we have our document, which is Spelling.docx. It's a Microsoft Word document. Now, if I were to press Enter on this.
JAWS: Opening Word. Spelling Dot Docx protected view Word, edit.
Brian Hartgen: It's actually opened it for me. And I could unprotect that of course, and do anything I wanted to do with that. I could press F6.
JAWS: Protected view. Be careful - files from the internet can contain viruses.
Brian Hartgen: And Tab.
JAWS: Enable editing button.
Brian Hartgen: And press space to unprotect it.
JAWS: (Sound in Microsoft Office relating to unprotecting document). Spelling Dot Docx Word. Spelling Dot Docx.

Brian Hartgen: Perfect. Now, if that was a graphical image, how could I deal with that situation? Well, let's just close this down by pressing alt F4.
JAWS: Message.
Brian Hartgen: And again.
JAWS: Inbox Brian at hartg (Prompt was cut).
Brian Hartgen: And I'm back to my inbox. Now, our folder location was C:\attachments. So, I'm going to browse to that now using file explorer.
JAWS: C Attachments. Items view, multi-select List Box. Spelling Dot Docx.
Brian Hartgen: And here I have my document.
JAWS: Spelling Dot Docx.
Brian Hartgen: And I could press Enter on that if I wanted to do so. Of course, if I didn't want that file any further, then I could just delete it. Or indeed, if I did want to keep it, I can move it out of this temporary storage location to anywhere that I chose. If this was an image from which I wanted to extract any text, I could activate the context menu on this file. And as JAWS is installed, you'll find there are options relating to scanning the document using OCR technology or Picture Smart, which can be used.

As someone who receives many email messages per day, I like to flag items in my mail folders so I do not forget to reply to them. This is helpful if it is going to take me a few hours to act on a message. To do this, you can focus on a message and you compress in our scripts Control+Windows+F. This is a toggle keystroke which will flag or unflag the item.
JAWS: Attachment. Lulu Hartgen. A demonstration document with spelling errors.
Brian Hartgen: That's our message. I'll press Control+Windows+F.
JAWS: Flagged.

Brian Hartgen: Having flagged a message for later review, I can from within Outlook move to my to do list with Control and four. This shows me any messages that I have flagged.
JAWS: Red flag. A Demonstration document with spelling errors at 22/05/2021 inbox.
Brian Hartgen: I can then act on it, unflag it with the same keystroke. And I know that that task is complete.
JAWS: Not flagged.

Brian Hartgen: If I move back to my inbox, I can see that the task is complete. And if necessary, I can move that email elsewhere for permanent storage.
JAWS: List Box, completed attachment. Lulu Hartgen. A demonstration document with spelling errors.

Brian Hartgen: The wide ranging functionality offered within the Microsoft Outlook Calendar as part of Microsoft's Office Suite allows people to create appointments or all day events and meeting requests to suit a range of need, both personal and within employment. JAWS will allow you to easily and accurately obtain information regarding scheduled calendar items using the same Outlook program interface enjoyed by cited friends and colleagues.

Let's deal with some terminology before we begin this. An all day event occupies an entire day or a number of days, while an appointment lasts for a specific period within the day, for example, two hours. Because this demonstration also can relate to Microsoft Teams, and Teams is tightly interwoven with Outlook, we can also have meeting events which could be online or face-to-face. The JAWS scripts that we provide for Microsoft Outlook go a long way to improving the calendar experience.

There are various methods for locating a specific day of the week. You can use the left and the right arrow keys to move through the days. Alternatively, you can press control with G for golf to bring into view the Microsoft Outlook Go To Date dialogue box. You can then type in a date in the format appropriate to your country or region, and then press Enter. However you've chosen to move to a date, JAWS announces and displays in braille information about it.

Now, first of all, we will hear how JAWS handles the calendar in its native form as we did in areas of Microsoft Teams. I'll head into the calendar now by pressing control and two.
JAWS: Day view. Zero total events. 1300 hours to 13:30, Friday, 21 May 2021.
Brian Hartgen: As we navigate through the days of the week, listen to the output.
JAWS: Day view. Zero total events, 1300 hours to 13:30, Saturday, 22 May 2021.
Brian Hartgen: Imagine that you're on the telephone and somebody is asking you if you are free for an engagement next Wednesday. You have to arrow through this, and the first thing that you're going to hear every time is that you're in the day view. It's hardly conducive to finding the day that you're interested in and learning whether you've got appointments on that day or not.
JAWS: Day view. Two total events, 1300 hours to 13:30 Monday, 24 May 2021.
Brian Hartgen: So, the actual day of the week is the fourth component in the list that you're listening to. First of all, you're hearing the view being announced, then how many events you have, then the time slot. And eventually you're going to hear the day of the week.

Now again, if you use the Go to Date dialog box with control G.
JAWS: Go to Date Edit.
Brian Hartgen: And we move to the 1st of June and press Enter.
JAWS: Day view. One total event. 1300 hours to 13:30 Tuesday, 1 June 2021. One event, one free.

Brian Hartgen: Let's move through the time slots, shall we, because this is something else that you can do. Just as I demonstrated in Microsoft Teams, it's possible for you to move through the time slots by pressing the up and down arrow keys. And this is useful because you can determine whether you've got free time on a given day.
JAWS: 13:30 to 1400 hours Tuesday, 1 June 2021. One event, one free. 1400 hours to 14:30 Tuesday, 1 June 2021.
Brian Hartgen: It's telling you that you're on the correct time slot, but then it's insisting on saying the date on which you are focused, which you already know because you've navigated to it.

Let us now swap to our scripts and we will see what experience we get. We'll press control two to go to our calendar.
JAWS: Friday 21 May 2021.
Brian Hartgen: And we've got no other extraneous speech happening. It's just announcing the date on which you're focused. I will press right arrow to move through the days.
JAWS: Thursday 20 May 2021 one item. Friday 21 May 2021 zero items. Monday 24 May 2021 two items.
Brian Hartgen: I use the term item to denote an all day event, a timed appointment or a meeting. It's a generic term. So, I can navigate to the day and I'm being told immediately the day on which I'm focused and how many events there are for that day.

Now I can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the available time slots.
JAWS: 13:30 to 1400 hours. 1400 hours to 14:30 appointment.

Brian Hartgen: Here are some other keystrokes which may be useful when navigating through the calendar. ALT Down Arrow moves to the next week, and ALT Up Arrow moves to the previous one.
JAWS: Monday 31 May 2021 one item. Monday 7 June 2021 zero items.
Brian Hartgen: Press ALT Page Down to move to the next month or ALT Page Up to move to the previous one.
JAWS: Wednesday, 7 July 2021 zero items.

Brian Hartgen: To hear details about the various appointments you can press Tab and with our scripts enabled, JAWS announces information pertaining to the calendar item which has focus. Now, essentially you have two output modes. We have one called condensed mode. And when this is enabled, condensed mode allows you to hear appointments or event details in an abbreviated form. JAWS will announce the time range the item occupies, such as 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, followed by the appointment subject. Ordinarily, JAWS does not have a condensed mode. So, you get the full output. Let's hear that first.
JAWS: Call Jane at home, 1400 hours to 14:30 Monday, 24 May 2021. Time busy. Organizer Brian Hartgen. One of two.
Brian Hartgen: And again.
JAWS: Stop work early, 1600 hours to 16:30 Monday, 24 May 2021. Time busy. Organizer Brian Hartgen. Two of two.
Brian Hartgen: So, we have two appointments on this date. Now we'll turn on condensed mode.
JAWS: 1400 hours to 14:30, call Jane at home, has notes. One of two.
Brian Hartgen: And again.
JAWS: 1600 hours to 16:30. Stop work early. Two of two.
Brian Hartgen: When we listen to the first item, it said, "Has notes." We'll come back to that in a moment, but it does mean that someone has appended information into the body of the Microsoft Outlook appointment. So, we'll find out how we can read those. The other thing that it did was to give us an appointment count. We know that there are two appointments on this day, and we know now that we have reached the second of two appointments. Why is that important? When you hear the total number of appointments that have been reached, you know to press right arrow to move to the next day. Let's do that by pressing right arrow.
JAWS: Tuesday, 25 May 2021, zero items. Monday, 31 May 2021, one item.

Brian Hartgen: Having pressed right arrow repeatedly, I'm now on the following Monday. And if I press the Tab key, remembering that we have our scripts enabled.
JAWS: Holiday, five days. One of one.
Brian Hartgen: It says, "Holiday, five days, one of one." This feature understands that there is an all day event and it occupies multiple days. And it's telling us that there are five days relative to the event. That is very useful information. Now, if you did not have our scripts installed, this is what you would hear.
JAWS: Holiday, zero o'clock Monday, 31 May 2021, to zero o'clock Saturday, 5 June 2021. All day. Time free. Organizer Brian Hartgen. One of one.
Brian Hartgen: It takes a little more working out as to how much holiday you've got or how many days the event occupies.

Let's go back to the previous Monday.
JAWS: Monday, 24 May 2021, two items.
Brian Hartgen: Here we have the appointments for Monday starting with "Call Jane at home." I'm going to press Insert Tab.
JAWS: Call Jane at home, 1400 hours to 14:30 Monday, 24 May 2021. Time busy. Organizer Brian Hartgen. One of two. Stop work early, 1600 hours to 16:30 Monday, 24 May 2021. Time busy. Organizer Brian Hartgen. Two of two. Press Escape to close this window.
Brian Hartgen: So, just by navigating to the day of the week and pressing Insert Tab you receive, in the JAWS virtual viewer, a summary of all the appointments for the focus day without having to move anywhere at all. You can, if necessary, move through this text word by word.
JAWS: Call Jane at home, 1400 hours to 14:30.
Brian Hartgen: Et cetera. I'll press Escape to close this down. If you were to press Tab into one of these appointments.
JAWS: 1400 hours to 14:30, call Jane at home, has notes. One of two.
Brian Hartgen: And press Insert Tab, you can view details of the individual appointment in the virtual viewer.
JAWS: 1400 hours to 14:30, call Jane at home, has notes. One of two. Her telephone number is (098) 765-4321. Press Escape to close this window.
Brian Hartgen: And that is giving you the notes for the appointment without having to Enter it. Ordinarily, if you didn't have this feature available, you would have to press Enter on the appointment, possibly press the Tab key a few times and eventually find the body of the event. In which case, you will be able to read the notes and then you would press the Escape key in order to move back to the appointment. But in this case, you can view the notes right here. I'm going to press Escape.
JAWS: Monday, 24 May 2021.

Brian Hartgen: There is another keystroke that you compress and that is ALT+Windows+A. Now this is a slightly different arrangement of the same detail that you've just read, except that it is presented in the results viewer as opposed to the virtual viewer. The difference here is that if you have any links which form part of the notes, you are able to activate them by pressing Enter on them. This is ideal for Teams meetings, because one of the main ingredients of a Teams meeting is a link called Meeting Options. And this allows you to customize the meeting in a way that suits you. For example, you can enable or disable whether people Enter a lobby area when joining the meeting, who can share the screen and a number of other useful options. The fact that the appointment notes are presented to you in an HTML format so that you can press Enter on the link makes a huge difference in that regard.

There is one other feature I would like to show you, and this is our feature which presents the appointments in time order. We have an appointment on Monday at 2:00 PM and another at 4:00 PM. If I were ordinarily to Tab it to the 4:00 PM appointment and then press the right arrow key to move to the next day, that would take the view to 4:00 PM on the Tuesday, not midnight, why is that important? If you had an appointment at 10:00 AM on the Tuesday and you've pressed the Tab key, you would miss it because the view is scheduled to move on from its current time slot, rather than to present the appointments in time order. So, there is a high chance that you could miss appointments that are important to you.
Our feature for presenting the appointments in time order is to my mind critical because it means that you cannot possibly miss anything. By default, what you would have had to have done in order to view that appointment would have been to press Shift Tab on the Tuesday to see the morning appointments. In other words, anything that precedes the four o'clock time slot.

To say again, our scripts for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook are available from our Teams scripts page. And you can reach that by going to www.hartgen.org/teamsscripts, all one word. Thank you for listening. And I hope that you found this presentation useful.