board accessibility: screen reader, braille display and low vision

A quick reference for everyday work. For screen readers the guiding system is NVDA; where JAWS differs, this is given in a column of its own or as a note. Tips on colour inversion, contrast and magnification are in section 17. Detailed explanations are in the user guide.

Note on this translation: Some sections concern German braille and German speech settings (sections 13, 18 and 19). They are kept for readers who work with German-language material; the notes say where they apply only to German.

1. Prerequisites

2. Browse mode and focus mode

Almost all stumbling blocks have the same cause: the wrong mode. NVDA and JAWS name their two modes differently; this reference uses the short forms browse mode and edit mode throughout – the table shows how they correspond.

• When you enter the input, the screen reader automatically switches to edit mode (NVDA: focus mode, JAWS: forms mode) – this is intended, otherwise you could not type.
• The quick-navigation keys in section 3 (among them B for buttons) work only in browse mode. In edit mode the same key press ends up as a letter in the text instead.
• The board shortcuts in section 5 work in both modes, because they all use a modifier key (Ctrl or Alt) – so you do not need to switch for them.

Practical example – from typing to a button and back:

1. Alt + I jumps into the input. The screen reader switches automatically to edit mode – you start typing straight away, every key press lands in the text.
2. In the middle of writing you want to go to the "Formula" button under the input (section 8). B does not take you there now – in edit mode B is simply typed as a letter. Only NVDA + Space or JAWS + Z switches back to browse mode; after that B finds the button, and Enter activates it.
3. The faster way for exactly this case: Alt + Shift + F (edit formula, section 5) works in both modes. Simply press it in the middle of typing, without switching first.
4. Back in the input, Alt + I switches the screen reader to edit mode again automatically – this also happens without manual switching.

3. Quick navigation in browse mode

With Shift in front, each key moves backwards to the previous element of that kind.

Two places where the two screen readers differ:

• E jumps only to real text-entry fields, whereas F jumps to every form element – including buttons, check boxes and drop-down lists. For jumping to the input, E is therefore the more direct way (faster still: Alt + I, section 5).
• K is the link key only in NVDA. In JAWS, K is bookmark; there you reach links with U, V or Tab, and the link list with Insert + F7.

Navigating a table cell by cell

Once you have landed in a table with T, you move within it with Ctrl + Alt + arrow keys. When you move, the screen reader normally also reads out the associated row or column heading.

This works only if the screen reader recognises the content as a real table – the tables in this reference and in the user guide meet that requirement.

4. How the page is built

The skip links are the first tab stops of the page – the fastest way in:

Skip to input · Skip to preview · Skip to board connection · Skip to current board (teacher) · Skip to participant list (teacher) · Skip to board list · Skip to board management

The most important regions, all reachable with D or R:

5. board keyboard shortcuts

6. Reading the input line by line

In browse mode a text field is a single block – reading line by line is not possible there.

That is why directly after the input there is the area "Input preview for screen readers". It is invisible, but fully present for screen readers and the braille display: every source line stands as a paragraph of its own.

How to get there: switch on browse mode, then use D (JAWS: R) up to the area "Input preview for screen readers" – there read line by line with the arrow keys.

For writing, on the other hand, you stay in the text field itself. There you work in edit mode quite normally with the arrow keys; the braille display shows the current line.

7. From a heading in the preview to the place in the source text

The most important manoeuvre when revising longer documents:

1. Alt + O – jump into the preview.
2. In browse mode go with H to the heading you want.
3. Press Enter on it. The heading is thereby remembered as a jump target.
4. Alt + I – the cursor now stands in the input on exactly the source line of this heading.

The jump target is valid for 15 seconds. After that, Alt + I again jumps only generally into the input, without changing the line.

8. Reading formulas

Formulas are in the preview as MathML, not as an image. Every formula can be focused and is read out in a structured way – that is, "fraction, numerator a plus b, denominator c plus d" instead of a string of characters.

Braille fallback: If the maths braille output does not give you what you need, read the formula in the input – there it is in linear board notation, that is, as continuous text which the braille display shows without a detour. The fastest way there is Alt + I; for reading line by line use the area from section 6.

In the teacher view there is additionally the collapsible area "Technical: LaTeX and MathML" at the bottom of the preview column with LaTeX and MathML source. In the student view this area is hidden.

Edit formula: Alt + Shift + F (or the "Formula" button under the input) opens a small working window – formula input field and live preview side by side, below them three buttons (Save step, Adopt, Cancel). Tab moves in turn through the input field, the preview and the three buttons. If the cursor is in an existing formula or in a line within a calculation block, its content is pre-filled for editing. Ctrl + Enter (or "Adopt") adopts the formula at the cursor position and closes the window. A plain Enter deliberately does not adopt here – so a focused formula in the preview can still be entered with Enter (see table above), even inside this window. Esc closes only when the input field is focused – on the preview, Esc is deliberately left to MathCAT (there it only leaves its structure navigation), so that a habitual double press of Esc does not accidentally discard the formula you are composing. To close from the preview, first go back to the input field with Tab.

Suggestion list: Ctrl + Space opens a list of matching board and LaTeX notations for the beginning of the word just typed – only on this key press, with no automatic opening while typing (that would interrupt the screen reader constantly). Up/Down arrow moves the selection, Enter or Tab adopts the marked suggestion as board syntax, Esc closes only the list (the formula window stays open). A status line announces how many suggestions were found. The same suggestion list is also available in the main input, but there only inside an already existing formula – outside, a status line says "Completion only available inside formulas".

Step-by-step rearrangement: Shift + Ctrl + Enter (or the "Save step" button) puts the current formula content as a line into a connected calculation block without closing the window. The input field is not cleared – the line saved last can be edited directly into the next step instead of being typed again. Only the last step is completed with Ctrl + Enter ("Adopt").

Minimal example – the derivative of f(x) = (x²+3)/(x+2) by the quotient rule:

1. Alt + Shift + F, type: f(x) = (x^2+3)/(x+2)
2. Shift + Ctrl + Enter (save step)
3. Edit the field directly into: f'(x) = (2x*(x+2) - (x^2+3)*1)/(x+2)^2
4. Shift + Ctrl + Enter
5. Edit the field into: f'(x) = (2x^2+4x-x^2-3)/(x+2)^2
6. Shift + Ctrl + Enter
7. Edit the field into: f'(x) = (x^2+4x-3)/(x+2)^2
8. Ctrl + Enter (Adopt) finishes.

In the document there is then a single connected calculation block with all four lines one after another.

Further shortcuts in the formula window: Alt + I jumps straight to the input field, Alt + O straight to the preview, Alt + P copies the current formula text to the clipboard. Ctrl + I (or the "×" next to the input field) clears only the input field without closing the window.

Numbers with a decimal mark: NVDA reads numbers according to the maths language in the NVDA settings (category Math), not according to the number format of the board. If the two do not match, the decimal mark is read as a thousands separator and the number sounds different: with the maths language German, 3.4 is spoken as “34”; with the maths language English, 3,4 is spoken as “34”. Therefore set the maths language to match the number format of the board (German for decimal comma, English for decimal point). The setting “Decimal separator for numbers” makes no difference (measured with NVDA 2026.3). If the board is set to decimal point and a formula contains a comma between digits inside brackets, for example f(1,5), a note appears after the formula saying that the comma was read as a separator.

9. Messages that are announced by themselves

10. Shared board: write permission

As a student: Without write permission the input is read-only; the status line then says "read-only". If the teacher grants or withdraws the permission, board briefly resets the focus in the input field – the cursor position is kept. This is intentional: only in this way do JAWS and NVDA notice the change between read-only and writable. If the screen reader still hangs in the wrong mode, NVDA + Space or JAWS + Z helps.

As a teacher:

1. Skip link "Skip to participant list", or with D / R to the region "Currently connected".
2. The list consists of buttons – go through it with B or the arrow keys. For each name the status is spoken as well: "online", "may write" or "you".
3. Enter on a name selects the person.
4. Then follow the buttons "Allow writing" and "Withdraw writing". Only one of the two is active at a time – the other is announced as disabled.
5. The status line then confirms the granting or withdrawal with the name.

Reading along while the teacher writes: Anyone who is in the input with Alt + I while the teacher (or a fellow student with write permission) types receives the changes continuously but silently in the text – bundled after three seconds at the latest. Your own cursor does not move along, nothing is read out; with the arrow keys you read the current state yourself at any time.

The "Focus" button is a toggle ("coupling"). As long as it is active (announced as "pressed", label "Coupling active"), everyone connected is pulled to the line of the last input – cursor and focus move along, and the screen reader announces the new line. In this way everyone stays at the same place while the teacher speaks. At every line change of the writing person the coupling follows; within one line it stays silent. If a student has write permission, the coupling follows that student's line.

The coupling ends automatically as soon as the input loses focus, with Esc, or by pressing "Focus" again. After that everyone is free again and navigates independently; the text continues to run along silently.

11. Output and export

• "Output" opens the rendered document in a tab of its own: a pure HTML page with real headings and MathML, without controls. The most pleasant variant for reading through with H.
• For export, HTML is the first choice, because the MathML is preserved and can be read with a screen reader. Word and E-book also contain the formulas; PDF is the worst choice.

"Accessible" is not a property that a format has as a whole – the levels differ. What the four export routes actually achieve for maths:

In the HTML export every formula additionally carries its board input with it: as an attribute on the formula element and as two annotations in the MathML (one board-specific and one as plain text). Anyone who cannot evaluate the MathML still gets the original notation this way.

Limit of the PDF export: The PDF is produced by printing the same export HTML in a browser. When printing, only the printed typeface remains of the MathML – the formula structure, the annotations and the language markup of the formula are lost. The PDF itself is tagged, with document language, real headings and paragraphs; but there are no tags for formulas. Displayed formulas appear as a figure whose alternative text is the linear board notation of the formula ("Formula: …"); formulas in running text have no alternative text. In the text of the formula, variables appear as mathematical-italic special characters instead of ordinary letters, and larger characters such as integral, root and large brackets partly as private-use characters without a fixed meaning. The observed behaviour comes from a check in October 2026; a different browser version may tag differently. What a screen reader reads out from such a PDF depends solely on which text fragments the print output leaves behind; reliable formula navigation or maths braille output is not to be expected from it. For accessible hand-out, therefore, take HTML; for text-service further processing, E-book.

Formulas pasted from other programs: board writes formulas in its own linear notation (section 8). Anyone who pastes a formula from Word, a PDF or a web page often brings raw mathematical Unicode characters with it – the sign for "element of", "less than or equal to", an arrow, a Greek letter or an italic mathematical alphabet. board translates these characters automatically into its own notation when rendering: the sign for "less than or equal to" becomes "<=", the double arrow "<=>", an italic mathematical a an ordinary a.

This is not cosmetic. An italic mathematical alphabet in the formula code does not lead on the braille display to a makeshift output but to none at all: the display reports a translation error and the whole formula is lost. After the rewriting, it appears normally.

Two things are deliberately preserved:

• The number sets. The symbol for the real numbers becomes "RR" and not a bare "R" – the difference carries meaning and remains visible right down to the braille display. The same goes for the natural, integer, rational and complex numbers.
• Umlauts in identifiers. A quantity such as V with the subscript "rück" appears as a coherent word. Without this treatment the formula display splits the umlaut into base letter plus diaeresis, and the braille display outputs an unreadable string of characters.

A style difference that board cannot express is lost in the rewriting: a bold A from another application (often used for vectors or matrices) becomes an ordinary A. For vectors board has its own notation "vec(a)".

If a formula is still not rendered: Characters without a board equivalent are not silently swallowed but visibly rejected. At the place of the formula there is then an error message that names the character objected to and gives its Unicode number in the form U+XXXX – so it can be identified even if the font or the braille display cannot show it.

12. Special characters and the braille display

Not every Unicode special character (arrows, geometric symbols, Greek letters in the middle of running text) is displayed reliably on a braille display. Whether and how a character appears depends on the screen reader and the braille translation set – 6-dot and 8-dot braille sometimes differ markedly here. Some braille displays then show a character that is not covered only as an unreadable substitute display (for example a sequence of numbers instead of the character).

Therefore: meaning-bearing information should never be conveyed solely through an unusual graphic special character. For non-mathematical arrows, bullet signs and similar symbols in running text, plain text or real document structure (list, heading) is to be preferred in case of doubt – this is also how the document converter processes scanned originals. Genuine mathematical and technical symbols are excepted: they need a proper accessible notation (section 8) and are neither written out across the board nor removed.

13. Adapting the NVDA braille code to board syntax (optional)

By default the braille display shows formulas in a braille code of its own (Nemeth, UEB, …) that differs from the board input – two notations for the same formula are impractical.

Step 1 – choose the best built-in code: NVDA menu → Settings → MathCAT settings → Braille → set the output code to ASCIIMath. The board input syntax is itself AsciiMath-like (sqrt(x), sin(x), x^2, …), so this code is closest to what you actually type.

Step 2 – move even closer (optional): An adapted rule package makes the remaining differences disappear – among others binom(n;k) instead of a misleading fraction, vec(1;2;3) and mat((a;b)(c;d)) instead of bracket lists, floor(x)/ceil(x)/bar(AB) instead of character combinations, powset(P), "and"/"or" instead of symbols.

Download: nvda-board-braille.zip

Installation (administrator rights needed, affects only the ASCIIMath code of NVDA/MathCAT on this PC):

1. Quit NVDA.
2. Find the installation folder, if unclear: open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) → "Details" tab → right-click nvda.exe → "Open file location". The folder that opens is your installation folder – for a normal (non-portable) installation usually C:\Program Files\NVDA, but it may differ (portable installation, different install location, 32/64-bit).
3. Copy the three files from the zip to <installation folder>\include\nvda-mathcat\assets\Rules\Braille\ASCIIMath\ (overwrite existing files; first keep a copy of the originals if you want to go back).
4. Restart NVDA.

A separate, individually selectable braille code called "board" is technically not possible – the available codes are hard-coded in NVDA's MathCAT software. The package therefore overwrites the existing code "ASCIIMath" directly; the label in the menu stays "ASCIIMath", but the content is aligned with board.

Status and limits (October 2026): The package implements the examples of the syntax reference so that board reads the braille output as the same formula again – this now also includes sets, intervals and function arguments with a semicolon, case distinction, absolute value, norm, mixed number, angle(BAC) and the separator line of the augmented matrix as "::". This applies to formulas written in board. Foreign MathML (for example directly from Word) can contain untranslated special characters; an expression with italic special characters makes the conversion in NVDA fail with the message "Error in braille conversion".

14. Stumbling blocks at a glance

15. Appendix: complete overview of the NVDA maths settings

Reachable via NVDA menu → Settings → Settings… → category "Math". Sections 1 and 13 of this reference pick out only the points most important for board (language, braille output code) – here is the complete overview of all settings available there.

16. Windows clipboard history (several copied items)

A general Windows 11 feature, not a board peculiarity – practical as soon as several recently copied items are needed instead of only the last one, for example to paste them one after another in different places.

NVDA announces the current entry when you open it with Windows + V. If the announcement of the individual entries stays poor or fails altogether, ask specifically for an NVDA-optimised alternative – for example an add-on or a small script for switching directly between the most recently copied texts.

17. Low vision: inverting colours, contrast, magnifying

This section is aimed at everyone who uses board sighted with a visual impairment. board deliberately has no dark design of its own – but the Windows built-in tools take full effect on board, because board does not opt out of any of these settings.

Inverting colours (colour filter)

The colour filter inverts the whole screen – board, formulas, function graphs and images alike. A web page can neither prevent nor weaken this.

Does board stay white? Almost always the keyboard shortcut is not enabled (see table). Then switch on the colour filter once via the settings and activate the shortcut there at the same time.

Dark mode is not the same thing

The Windows switch "Choose your mode: Dark" (Settings → Personalisation → Colours) recolours only programs and web pages that bring a dark design of their own. board has none – so board stays white with it. For a dark background use a colour filter or a contrast theme.

Contrast themes

Unlike the colour filter, a contrast theme replaces the colours of text, backgrounds, borders and buttons with the colours of the theme – the display thereby becomes clearer than with mere inversion. Embedded images may keep their original colours. In Firefox, under Settings → Manage colours, "Override the colours specified by the page" must be set to "Only with high contrast themes" (default).

Magnifying

Finding the cursor and mouse pointer more easily

18. Looking up braille: mathematics notation and computer braille

On the braille display you meet two different writing systems that are easily confused. The following describes the German systems; the works are published in German only.

An example of the difference: the digit 1 is ⠼⠁ in mathematics notation (number sign and a), but a single character ⠡ in computer braille. If your braille display shows formulas in 8 dots, you are reading computer braille – then the rules of the second work apply, not those of the mathematics notation.

Both rule books are published for free download by the Braille Authority of the German-speaking countries (BSKDL), each in a version for the braille display:

• Mathematics notation: bskdl.org – Mathematik Braillezeile UBP ohne Grafiken
• German braille with computer braille: bskdl.org – bs-2021-07-17-UBP

In the material, both works lie together with an overview on the sheet F050 Reference works on braille under extra sheets, in the area of the formula collection (reachable after sign-in).

19. Sending braille to an embosser without extra software (Windows)

The braille export delivers, among other things, a BRL file: ASCII braille with finished lines and pages, with line ending CR LF and a page break (form feed) after the footer of each page. Many embossers accept such a file unchanged. With Windows alone this works without a braille program, rtfc or Tiger Viewer; only the installed printer driver is needed. The board itself does not print to an embosser.

How the printer reads the file. The ViewPlus SpotDot (formerly Emprint) works in legacy mode with such files and follows the device settings from the printer properties (Device Settings tab, Legacy Settings area): Form Size and Form Length, Top Margin, Left Margin, Extra Line Spacing, Text/Graphics Mode and Braille Table. These settings are stored in the printer and can be changed only while it is connected by USB and switched on; click Apply after every change.

Way 1: copy the file to the printer share.

1. Share the printer in Windows: Settings, Printers and scanners, choose the printer, Printer properties, Sharing tab, share the printer, give a share name without spaces (for example SpotDot).

2. In PowerShell or the command prompt, copy the file in binary mode:

   cmd /c copy /b "C:\Users\Name\Downloads\datei.brl" \localhost\SpotDot

The option /b is important so that the file arrives byte for byte. Windows reports the copying as soon as the job is accepted; whether the driver passes the data on unchanged is seen only at the device.

Way 2: script with a RAW job (for system support). A small PowerShell script outputs the file as a RAW job through the print queue, without sharing. It is in the board repository under scripts/braille-drucken (with instructions). With the option -List it shows the printers, and it prints with -Printer and -File.

Tactile graphics from the Graph page. The Graph page can also deliver a finished file for the SpotDot: with the output type "Braille", the entry "SpotDot (PRN)" in the "Format" selection (then "Export") produces the file board-grafik-spotdot-tiger20-a4.prn. It is sent to the printer in the same way as the BRL file with Way 1 or Way 2, for example: cmd /c copy /b "C:\Users\Name\Downloads\board-grafik-spotdot-tiger20-a4.prn" \localhost\SpotDot. The page then has only one pin height; grid lines are one pin wide, axes two and function graphs three.

If an extra blank line appears. The BRL file has no blank line at the page transitions: each page has exactly as many lines as set (default 28), the last is the footer, after it comes the form feed. If an additional blank line appears at the top of the SpotDot from the second page onwards, the cause is the printer. First check Top Margin and Extra Line Spacing (both at 0) and Form Size (matching the paper loaded); then click Apply and print again. Whether this helps in every case is not yet confirmed.

If umlauts or the "ß" are embossed wrongly. The BRL file uses the German Euro-Braille 6 assignment. The Braille Table in the printer must match it; a North American table embosses special characters differently.