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I received an email recently from a reader asking for help. Being legally blind and not a fan of Windows, he needed to know if Linux had a screen reader to assist him. Fortunately, the answer to that question is "yes." The GNOME and Plasma desktops both include such an option, so there's very little in the way of setup.
The app in question is Orca, a free, open-source screen reader capable of reading anything on the desktop. Orca is an underlying system that works in conjunction with applications and toolkits. Any app that supports the Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI) will function with Orca.
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As I mentioned, with the GNOME desktop, there's very little in the way of setup for the Orca screen reader. There's also a command line tool, but it's not nearly as easy to use as the GUI.
Before I continue, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the voice included in Orca takes some getting used to. As someone who doesn't depend on accessibility tools, I'm not used to the cadence and tone of the synthesized voices. If you are accustomed to them, you probably won't have much of an issue.
And now, let me show you how to use Orca.
What you'll need: To use Orca, you'll need a Linux distribution with either the GNOME or Plasma desktop. First, we'll deal with GNOME.
Log in to GNOME, open the Settings application, and click Accessibility.
Under Accessibility, you'll see the Screen Reader entry. Click the entry and a popup will appear. Next, click the On/Off slider until it's in the On position. You should immediately hear the Orca voice read what currently has focus (which will be the On/Off popup).
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Once Orca reads aloud, you can close the popup and the Settings apps. Now, when you click on any window, Orca will read the contents within the app.
Although you can enable the screen reader from here, you'll have to configure it from another app.
To disable Orca, return to Settings > Accessibility, click the Screen Reader entry, and switch the On/Off switch to the Off position. You can also enable the Accessibility Menu, which gives you quick access to enable/disable any accessibility features from the GNOME system tray.
To access the Orca configuration on GNOME, open the terminal window and type:
orca -s
This step will open a window, where you can configure general, voice, speech, braille, echo, and several other options. Once you've changed the configuration, click OK to save and dismiss the window.
You can access the Orca Settings app in GNOME from the command line.
Although Plasma includes the Screen Reader interface, you have to install Orca for it to function. To do that, open a terminal window and issue the command:
sudo apt-get install orca -y
If you're using a Fedora-based distribution, the command is:
sudo dnf install orca -y
Open the Settings app and click Accessibility. In the resulting window, click Screen Reader and click Enable Screen Reader.
Plasma gives you quick access to the Orca Settings app.
After you've enabled the Screen Reader, click Launch Orca Screen Reader Configuration. Here you can configure several options, such as the keyboard layout, mouse, time/date, profiles, voice type, speech system, verbosity, and more.
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Once you've made any configuration changes, click OK. Make sure to click Apply on the Accessibility window and then close Settings.
You'll find all the settings that you need for the Orca Screen Reader here.
If the screen reader isn't functioning properly on Plasma, reboot the machine, and that action should resolve the issue.
That's all there is to adding a screen reader to the GNOME or Plasma desktops.
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