[[!meta title="Accessibility"]]

Tails and the GNOME desktop include assistive technologies to support users
with various impairments and special needs, and to interact with common
assistive devices.

[[!toc]]

Universal access menu
=====================

You can activate most of these technologies from the universal access menu (the
[[!img lib/preferences-desktop-accessibility.png alt="Universal Access" class="symbolic" link="no"]]
icon which looks like a person) in the top bar:

[[!img introduction_to_gnome_and_the_tails_desktop/accessibility.png link="no"
alt="Universal Access menu with the following options (disabled
by default): High Contrast, Zoom, Large Text, Screen Reader, Screen Keyboard,
Visual Alters, Sticky Keys, Slow Keys, Bounce Keys, and Mouse Keys"]]

These technologies are documented in more details in the
[GNOME universal access documentation](https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html).

Screen reader
=============

To hear screen elements spoken to you, you can activate the
<span class="guilabel">Screen Reader</span> accessibility feature.

For more detailed documentation refer to the official [<span
class="application">Orca</span> Screen Reader
documentation](https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/).

<div class="bug">

<p>The screen reader does not work with <span class="application">Tails
Installer</span> nor with the <span class="application">Unsafe
Web Browser</span> and <span class="application">I2P Browser</span>.</p>

</div>

<span class="application">Florence</span> virtual keyboard
==========================================================

If you prefer a pointing device over the keyboard, you can open the
[[<span class="application">Florence</span> virtual
keyboard|first_steps/introduction_to_gnome_and_the_tails_desktop#florence]] from the top bar:

[[!img doc/first_steps/introduction_to_gnome_and_the_tails_desktop/florence.png alt="Florence icon in the top bar" link="no"]]

<span class="application">Dasher</span> graphical text entry application
========================================================================

If you are operating a computer one-handed (by joystick, touchscreen,
or mouse) or zero-handed (by head-mouse or eyetracker), you can use the <span
class="application">[Dasher](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/)</span> graphical predictive text
entry application.

<span class="application">Dasher</span> is available from
<span class="menuchoice">
  <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
  <span class="guisubmenu">Universal Access</span>&nbsp;▸
  <span class="guimenuitem">Dasher</span></span>.
