Now that I have worked a bit more with Window-Eyes, I thought that I would share with you some more of my observations. Last time, I had mentioned that I planned to look at the performance of Window-Eyes with the Office 2010family of products. I still have to take a look at every feature of them comparing the two screen readers, but I will, for this entry, focus on my experiences with Window-Eyes and Word 2010.
One of the more striking things that I have discovered during my time using the two programs together is that some of the features that seem to be available in JAWS don't seem to be available yet to those using Window-Eyes. a prime example is when an author opens a document in which either they themselves, or someone else has added comments. Comments are a great way for multiple authors when working on a document to colaborate and give feedback. I find their use an integral part of my own education since my professors use them to provide corrections on essays, scripts, and papers. The big problem with them that I see when using Window-Eyes and Word 2010 together is that the choices in the right-click context menu pertaining to their manipulation are not read by Window-Eyes, but they are read by JAWS. (for those who are unfamiliar with what I am talking about, when you have your cursor positioned at the beginning of a line that has a comment in it, and you right-click, two additional choices will appear in the menu that pops up. They are: delete comment and edit comment.) I find this rather odd, and I intend to mention it as a support request to GW Micro. Having this problem could really inhibit the productivity of a blind employee who depends on feedback via this method from their boss and co-workers.
Another interesting thing that I have found between JAWS and Window-Eyes when working with Word 2010 is the stability of each when working in the spell checker. With JAWS, the result is always the same; stability without problems, but with Window-Eyes, it is much different. When a person tries to spell check using Window-Eyes as their screen reader, it may work fine; reading all pertinent information, or it might not, either reading nothing, or reading the information in a very fragmented manner. Questions have come up a lot on the mailing lists at GW micro regarding this particular topic, and different individuals say different things. I for one thing, have not had a very good experience with it at all; always switching to JAWS whenever it is time to spell check a document. Well, till next time, be waiting for my thoughts on another member of the Office 2010 family.