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Re: Bold Italics

for

From: Bourne, Sarah (ITD)
Date: Sep 26, 2012 8:45AM

For as long as I've known, JAWS does not make any differentiation for bold or italics text by default, at least on web pages. Perhaps Word is different? I did a little poking around on the Freedom Scientific website, and found a handy (not!) 20 step process for customizing the speech sounds schemes so it will speak bold in a deeper voice. Has anybody on this list done this, or know of someone who has?

I agree with Chris that the key question is "why" it has to be bold and italic for sighted users. If it's because it's in another language or included in a glossary or has some other necessary semantic value, you will need to find a way of presenting that value other than use of italics and/or bold alone. Otherwise - in practical terms - it doesn't matter to a screen reader user.

Sarah E. Bourne
Director of Assistive Technology &
Mass.Gov Chief Technology Strategist
Information Technology Division
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.mass.gov/itd