Personalized Web Page Settings

You can configure many JAWS settings for specific Web sites. Turn off heading announcement on Web sites that use headings to format information rather than structure it. Turn off inline frames on sites that use them for advertising. Turn off announcement of image map links on sites that do not provide alternate text for them, but do provide text links as well. Make the various JAWS settings work for you to enhance your experiences on the Internet.

JAWS includes many configurable settings to access information on Web pages as efficiently as possible, and JAWS uses default settings that provide the most information on the majority of Web sites. However, there are many Web sites that are not designed with accessibility in mind or do not use HTML correctly. When using JAWS default settings, some of these Web pages may not provide enough information, while others may provide too much.

What Settings can be Personalized?

You can personalize many types of Web settings. For example:

• Prevent Web sites from automatically refreshing, so the information does not reload and cause JAWS to read from the top of the page all over again.
• Turn off graphic links on sites where alternate text is not provided or where the graphic links do not provide useful information.
• Turn off heading announcement when headings are not used to structure information on a page.
• Turn off navigation quick keys on pages that use certain types of access keys so the keys do not conflict.
• Personalize Web settings for forms, frames, lists, and long quotations.

Personalizing Web Settings

Before personalizing your Web settings for a specific Web site, you must identify what settings are most effective on that site.

1. Read through pages on the site and note what reads well, what does not read well, and what reads too much.
2. Use the Adjust JAWS Verbosity dialog box (INSERT+V) to temporarily adjust settings to determine if the changes make the page easier to use. Test this on several pages on the site. If you are adjusting settings so JAWS speaks less information, make sure that the information is not essential on some pages of the site.
3. Press INSERT+SHIFT+V to open the Personalized Settings dialog box, adjust the settings you want to use for the entire Web site, and press ENTER.

Note: When you change Personalized Web Settings, you are changing them for the entire Web site, not just for the page you are currently visiting. For example, if you are visiting http://www.FreedomScientific.com/fs_news/index.asp and set graphics in HTML to none, JAWS does not announce graphics on that page, and does not announce graphics on http://www.FreedomScientific.com/fs_products/software.asp or http://www.FreedomScientific.com/training/training.asp either.

Sharing Personalized Settings

You can use the new JAWS Settings Packager to create and share personalized settings with others. JAWS versions 5.10 and later have this new feature which allows you to easily share files of these types with other JAWS users. For information on this program, see Settings Packager.

To manually share your personalized settings with other JAWS users:

1. Press WINDOWS Key+E to start Windows Explorer.
2. Go to the drive and folder where you installed JAWS.
3. Open the SETTINGS\ENU\PersonalizedSettings folder.
4. JAWS stores personalized settings information in .jsi files. Locate the .jsi file with the domain name of the page that uses the personalized settings you want to share. For example: "Google.com.jsi."
5. Copy this file and distribute it to others. Those you share your .jsi file with then need to copy the .jsi file into the SETTINGS\ENU\PersonalizedSettings folder on their computers. They can now use that HTML page with your personalized settings.