Reading and editing Word documents with Supernova/Hal
Chapter 1: Working with documents
Reading and editing documents with Supernova/Hal couldn't be easier. As you navigate through the text, Supernova/Hal reads out loud the text underneath your cursor a letter, a word or a line at a time, depending on which navigation keys you press.
Move the cursor left or right and each character will be announced. Move a word at a time by pressing CONTROL + CURSOR LEFT or RIGHT and each word will be announced. And, by moving to a new line using CURSOR UP or CURSOR DOWN the line will be announced.
Do you want more information?
Supernova/Hal contains an array of speak keys that goes beyond giving you more than just the character, word or line announcement. These are all multikey commands.
To read the character under the cursor press NUMPAD 4. To have the character announced using the phonetic alphabet press NUMPAD 4 a second time. Press NUMPAD 4 a third time and you will learn about the character's attributes like font name, size, style etc. And, a final press of NUMPAD 4 will give you the character's unicode value. Press NUMPAD 4 again and you are back at the beginning with the announcement of the character.
To read, spell and have a word read phonetically press NUMPAD 5 one, two or three times. To read, verbose and spell a line press NUMPAD 6 your required number of times.
To read the status line, which contains your position information, such as column, row, page and section, simply press the read status line key. This is NUMPAD 2. To read selected text on the screen, just press NUMPAD 1. Again, these are multikey commands!
Here are some more useful speak keys that you might want to use in Microsoft Word:
To read the current line up to the cursor:
Press LEFT SHIFT + NUMPAD 1.
To read the current line from the cursor:
Press LEFT SHIFT + NUMPAD 2.
Read sentence:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + NUMPAD 4.
Read paragraph:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + NUMPAD 5.
And what about moving a sentence or paragraph at a time and have the sentence or paragraph read as you go!
Move to previous sentence:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + COMMA.
Move to next sentence:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + PERIOD.
Move to previous paragraph:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + LEFT BRACKET.
Move to next paragraph:
Press DOLPHIN KEY + RIGHT BRACKET.
By default the DOLPHIN KEY is the CAPS LOCK key.
Working with tables.
If you encounter a table in your document, Supernova/Hal will automatically read the table one cell at a time, informing you of the column and row numbers of the cell you are on.
Working with the Spell checker.
While using the Microsoft Word spell checker you will find when a misspelled word is encountered, Supernova/Hal reads you the entire line which contains the misspelled word. This is done so that you may immediately identify the context in which the misspelled word occurs. To read the misspelled word by itself, press LEFT SHIFT + NUMPAD 4 (custom application key 4). To spell the misspelled word, simply repeat the key press a second time.
Pressing TAB will bring you to the list of suggestions and pressing CURSOR DOWN will move you through the list. To repeat the selected suggestion press NUMPAD 0 and to spell the suggestion press NUMPAD 0 twice.
You can then TAB to the various spell checker buttons that allow you to confirm or ignore the correction. Each of these buttons have associated shortcut keys so once you become familiar with working in the Spell Checker selecting or rejecting options will soon become a single key press away.
To have Supernova/Hal read the shortcut key for a control, like a button, press LEFT SHIFT + NUMPAD DEL.
Microsoft Word hot keys.
Here are a few Microsoft Word hot keys to help you get started but remember a review of the application's help will prove rewarding if working regularly in this application.
| Function | Hot key |
| Make letters bold | Control + B |
| Make letters italic | Control + I |
| Make letters underline | Control + U |
| Decrease font size | Control + Shift + < |
| Increase font size | Control + Shift + > |
| Remove paragraph or character formatting | Control + Spacebar |
| Copy the selected object | Control + C |
| Cut the selected object | Control + X |
| Paste | Control + V |
| Undo the last action | Control + Z |
| Redo the last action | Control + Y |
| Find | Control + F |
| Repeat find (after closing Find and Replace window). | Alt + Control + Y |
| Insert a line break | Shift + Enter |
| Insert a page break | Control + Enter |
| Insert a section break | Control + Shift + Enter |
| Centre a paragraph | Control + E |
| Justify a paragraph | Control + J |
| Left align a paragraph | Control + L |
| Right align a paragraph | Control + R |
| Indent a paragraph from the left | Control + M |
| Remove a paragraph indent from the left | Control + Shift + M |
| Create a hanging indent | Control + T |
| Reduce a hanging indent | Control + Shift + T |
| Remove paragraph formatting | Control + Q |
| Apply the Normal style | Control + Shift + N |
| Apply the heading 1 - 3 styles | Alt + Control + 1 - 3 |
And Don't forget that access to the Microsoft Word Application Notes is only a hot key away - RIGHT CONTROL + RIGHT SHIFT + SLASH. The application notes provides you with a summary of all the main Supernova/Hal commands available in Microsoft Word.