"A word in Your Ear".

Optimising the Power of JAWS for windows and Microsoft Word.

For many years, Microsoft Word has been the industry standard and leader for word processing documents. This is why the support within the JAWS for Windows screen-reader for this application provides the blind user with some incredible tools to gain the most from it. But how do you unlock that power? Our online course, "A Word in Your Ear", will show you.

There are several key requirements to consider when composing Microsoft Word documents.

• Presentation. As a blind person, do you want to be immensely proud that you have submitted a document to your boss with the full knowledge that it looks fantastic? Presumably you don't want your colleagues to think that they must make allowances for poor presentation because you have no vision.
• Productivity. Because we use screen-reading technology, it is likely to take longer to carry out computing tasks, including word processing and format checking. Knowing how to harness the power of your screen-reader to get the information you need, to locate specific areas of a document quickly and to move in and out of Word's many functions with keystrokes are vital to your success.
• Accessibility. If you are advocating to people that they should create accessible documents for you, then it follows that any document you create must be equally accessible, if not more so. You must lead the way and show people how it is done.

"A Word in Your Ear" will teach you all of these things and more. Whether you are creating a newsletter for a church or voluntary group, or maybe you are producing very complex documents with many formatting requirements for work or study, you will learn how to be more productive when using two extremely powerful tools: JAWS and Microsoft Word.

Considerable emphasis will be placed both upon document accessibility and enhancing your listening skills so as to fully understand the speech output JAWS is delivering.

What Will I Learn?

The course is divided into four lessons, each of 90 minutes duration. Topics include:

• Customising Word for optimum accessibility;
• Demystifying the Ribbon;
• Tips and Tricks for Saving and Editing;
• Alignment, formatting and font verification;
• The JAWS Speech and Sounds Manager;
• JAWS Navigation Quick Keys for locating document segments;
• The JAWS Skim Reading Tool;
• Selecting text quickly and ways to manipulate it;
• Headings, styles, numbered lists and bulleted lists;
• Working with (and creating) tables and customising the JAWS speech and Braille output;
• Using Templates;
• Creating accessible forms;
• Track Changes or Revisions;
• Autocorrect;
• Inserting the date and time.

Who is the Course For?

"A Word in Your Ear" is ideally suited to anyone who already understands the basic concepts of word processing and who wishes to further their knowledge in this area. It will also benefit I T professionals who have an elementary understanding of screen-reading but who want to provide a greater level of support to blind people, such as other colleagues they are working with.

Course Prerequisites.

As can be seen from the list of topics above, many subjects are covered. It is therefore important that you have:

• Good keyboarding skills;
• Knowledge of how to undertake basic word processing features, such as to select (or highlight) text, printing, spell checking, etc;
• JAWS for Windows version 14 through to 18;
• Preferably Microsoft Word 2013 (although most topics should be equally usable with Word 2010 or 2016).

If I Purchase the Course, What Will I Receive?

The course will give to you:

• An audio recording of each of the 4 lessons;
• Text documentation to reinforce topics covered in the lessons.

How to Purchase.

A Word in Your Ear is priced £50 which is approximately 62 American Dollars.