Entering, navigating and editing text 

Nots of a 1 hour Vista Zoom session from November 2023

Entering text 

On-screen keyboard with VoiceOver

Standard typing - locate by swiping or exploring and hear character, lift and double tap to enter;

Touch typing - explore to locate and hear character and lift to enter;

Direct touch typing - VoiceOver is disabled just for the keyboard. I've experienced some issues when testing this option in iOS 17.1.1. Occasionally it stopped a double tap gesture working on my home screen and elsewhere. I haven't had time to investigate properly and report to Apple but will do so soon.

If you do use Direct touch typing you may prefer to turn off VoiceOver feedback for software keyboards at Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Typing / Typing feedback

QuickPath or Slide to Type - lets you zigzag over the approximate shape of a word on the keyboard and you lift to enter when you hear the word you want which may be before you have finished your zigzag.

On-screen keyboard withoutVoiceOver

Standard touch typing;

QuickPath or Slide to Type;

Keyboards available from the AppStore

Dictation

Non-VoiceOver users, tap on the Microphone symbol to start dictation.

VoiceOver users, double tap with two fingers to start and stop dictation.

Braille Screen Input

VoiceOver users - add BSI to the rotor then when editing text turn the rotor to BSI and tap Braille on the screen.

Handwriting

Non VoiceOver and VoiceOver users can handwrite with an Apple Pencil on iPads.

VoiceOver users can handwrite with a finger on screen. Ad handwriting to the rotor and then turn the rotor to handwriting when entering text. 

Correcting as you go

You can use the delete key on the keyboard to delete the last few characters typed.

You can undo the most recently entered section of text by shaking your phone or iPad. This is particularly useful if you enter text by dictatin in short sections. VoiceOver users should now swipe right to the undo button and double tap. This will select your most recently entered text. If you want to check, tap with 3 fingers to hear the selection spoken. The selected text can be deleted with the delete key on the keyboard or will be replaced by the next text you enter if you don’t use the delete key. 

The process should be clear visually to non-VoiceOver users.

External bluetooth keyboards

Standard bluetooth QWERTY keyboares can be connected wirelessly to iPhones and iPads.

Braille keyboards can also be connected. 

It is possible to undo, navigate and edit text on bluetooth keyboards using a special set of commands. Alternatively you can use the phone or iPad screen to do that after entering text on your bluetooth keyboard. 

Navigating text

Headings are like headlines

Sighted users can usually identify headings and sub-headings in documents visually since they are usually in distinctive fonts or sizes. This isn’t available to blind users.

Use styles in word processors to distinguish headings, subheadings, etc. Styles do two things.  They choose a font and size that makes the item visually prominent and they also place an invisible marker that screen reader users can use. Web page authoring tools also offer styles to help make web pages accessible to blind users. 

VoiceOver users can skim through a document or web page that has been correctly marked up with headings by turning the rotor to headings and swiping down with one finger to progress from heading to heading. 

Sadly this doesn't seem to work when you edit a document in Pages but if the document is exported to PDF the PDF can be navigated by heading. This has been reported to the Apple Accessibility team and they have confirmed that they were able to reproduce the issue nad have passed it on to the appropriate team for investigation. I think it will be fixed in an update to Pages but we may have to wait a while for it to reach the top of the priority list.

Heading navigation works as expected when editing a document in Word.

Using the VoiceOver rotor to navigate documents

All the following rotor positions should be on your rotor by default:

Lines, charters, words, headings, links

Turn the rotor to one of these and swipe up or down with one finger to move through the document a line, a character, etc. at a time.

Editing text

Adding text

Non-VoiceOver users can tap the location where text is to be added to move the blinking insertion pointer there. If you find it hard to hit the correct location, rest your finger on the keyboard space bar and all the keyboards keys will become blank and the keyboard has effectively become a trackpad. Slide your finger around this trackpad to locate the insertion point accurately.

VoiceOver users can move the insertion point using the rotor positions for line, word, etc. If it’s a long document and marked up with headings then use the headings rotor position to locate the approximate location.

After the insertion point is moved to the desired position, enter text using any method.

Corrections

For small corrections, it’s often simplest to navigate to the end of the item you want to correct, use the keyboard delete key repeatedly to delete the unwanted item and then enter the correction.

For larger corrections, you may want to select a section of text in order to dewlete, replace or move it.

Non-VoiceOver text correction

Non-VoiceOver users can select text as follows:

Select a word by double tapping it;

Select a paragraph by triple tapping within the paragraph;

Change the selected range by dragging the blue blobs at start and end of the selection.

When you select in this way, a pop up menu will appear offering options that will vary depending on the app you are using. The menu will usually include the option to copy, which will copy the selected text to the clipboard so that it may be pasted elsewhere. You may also find a cut option which deletes the section after copying it to the clipboard.

If you simply want to delete or replace the selected text, either use the keyboard delete key to delete the text or type the desired replacement which will replace the selected text.

VoiceOver text correction

Use the lines, words or characters rotor positions to move the insertion point to before the beginning of the text you want to select. Turn the rotor to text selection and swipe up or down to hear the options. For a very large selection, page selection might be useful, but for smaller selections, use lines to add a line at a time to your selection and then fine tune the selection by swiping up to change the selection amount to words. In order to add a page, line or word to the selection, swipe right. If you overshoot, swipe left to remove the last item from the selection. Character selection is also available if needed.

If you want to check the selection, tap with three fingers to hear it spoken.

If you want to delete or replace the selected text, use the delete key on the keyboard to delete or enter new text to replace the selected text.

If you want to move the selected text to a new location in the document or in to another app, turn the rotor to edit and swipe up until you hear copy and then double tap. That will copy the selected text to the clipboard.

Non-VoiceOver text pasting

Once text has been copied to the clipboard it can be pasted to a new location in the  current document or into another document or app. Move the insertion point to the location you want to paste the selected text and rest your finger for a moment before lifting it. A pop up menu will appear and will include the option to paste.

Pasting text with VoiceOver

Once text is copied to the clipboard, locate the position to which you want to paste the text. Turn the rotor to edit and swipe up until you hear paste. Double tap and the text will be pasted in to the new location.

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