JAWs reader not reading text in shapes

Oct 28, 2021

A JAWs screen reader is not reading the text in certain shapes on several of my slides. The shapes are set up as layers so that they appear when the user clicks other shapes on the page to display text that isn’t narrated.

From my understanding, JAWs should be able to read text that's included in shapes. Some of the text is quite long and there are up to 9 pop-ups on some slides so I'm wondering if it may be an issue of length. Is there a word or character limit to what JAWs will read on a given slide?

Is there any other reason why JAWs may not be able to read text in shapes or layers?

1 Reply
Lauren Connelly

Hi Lisa!

I'm happy to help! It sounds like you've included shapes with text in your project, and the text isn't read off by JAWS. You're correct; JAWS should be reading off the text that is included in shapes. In JAWS, you can select how many characters are read off before you have to use the down arrow key, so JAWS continues reading. The standard is usually 150 characters.

Here's a quick demo of my testing where I navigated through a Storyline 360 course that included shapes with text.