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Re: Large numbers and currency symbols in screen readers

for

From: Travis Roth
Date: May 6, 2009 10:00AM

JAWS' default reading reads the dollar sign ($) first:
$508,000,000 = "dollar five hundred eight million."

JAWS can be set to spell out numbers via digits. I am not sure if you can
get it to change the reding order of the dollar sign.

As for if "$508m" is confusing: I think it depends on the context. If the
article is giving the numbers in this fashion for all readers and it says
something like "numbers are in millions" then it is no more confusing for a
screen reader user than anyone else.
If numbers in the text are being used in their entireity then I suggest
using the same approach in the Alt text.

Lastly, as for using commas. Yes please include the commas. It does not
impact the speech output generally. However, it does improve the readability
for Braille users, and for if the user decides to read the number one
character at a time.