Freedom Scientific News

We at Freedom Scientific would like to wish you a joyous and peaceful holiday season. May your holidays be filled with family, friends, and good memories. We look forward to bringing you more innovative solutions in the coming year.

The Freedom Scientific offices will be closed on Christmas Eve (December 24), Christmas Day (December 25), and New Year’s Day (January 1).

On December 17, a free update for JAWS® 15 was released. This free update includes enhancements and improvements for many JAWS features, including using JAWS with Adobe® Reader® and Microsoft® products, including Excel®, Internet Explorer®, Outlook®, Word®, Office®, and Visual Studio®. Other enhancements improve performance with Skype™ and Mozilla® Firefox® and Thunderbird®.

JAWS 15 was released in October, 2013, including support for Touch Screens with Windows, plus support for Windows 8.1; the new FSReader 3, now with HTML support for reading DAISY books; new settings for controlling how Web page links are activated; updated Skype support; many enhancements for Braille use; support for third-party Braille displays; and support for Vocalizer™ Expressive speech synthesizers from Nuance® Communications.

You can download the latest version of JAWS at the JAWS download page.

The Training Department is pleased to announce both free and paid Webinars for the first part of 2014. We are always developing new Webinars, so please visit our free Webinars and paid Webinars pages for the most up-to-date information.

Free Webinars

• Webinar Training Room Orientation, January 8
• JAWS and MAGic® Reading Commands and Cursors used by JAWS, January 15
• Facebook and JAWS: Tips and tricks for a better experience, January 22
• LinkedIn with JAWS: Tips and tricks for a better experience, February 5
• Surf's Up! Surfing the Internet with JAWS and MAGic, Lessons One through Six, February 12, 19, 26, March 5, 12, 26
• Webinar Training Room Orientation, April 2
• Yahoo Groups with JAWS and MAGic, April 9
• File Explorer in Windows 8, April 16
• PDF Document Reading and Strategies with JAWS and MAGic, April 23 and 30

Paid Webinars

• JAWS Training for Teachers and AT Trainers, Lessons One through Twelve, February 4 - March 13 – $49
• Word 2013 with JAWS, April 3, 8, and 10 – $29
• Outlook 2013 with JAWS, May 8, 13, and 15 – $29
• Excel 2013 with JAWS, June 12, 17, and 19 – $29
• PowerPoint 2013 with JAWS, July 10, 15, and 17 – $29

Remember that archive recordings are available for both free and paid Webinars. Visit the free Webinar archive page and the paid Webinar archive page for details.

When you press CTRL+O to open a file or CTRL+S to save a file In Microsoft® Office 2013, the Backstage view appears. The choices there allow you to save files to the cloud using SkyDrive, to your local computer and other places. However, if you want to open or save files on your local computer, you have to press TAB several times to get to the Browse folder to find the familiar File Open or File Save As dialog box. To bypass the Backstage view and go directly to these dialog boxes, use the following Microsoft Office keystrokes:

• Open: CTRL+F12
• Save As: F12

NOTE: These keystrokes also exist in prior versions of Microsoft Office, but they are especially useful in Office 2013.

November's FSCast presents a discussion with Jonathan Mosen, Glen Gordon, Chief Technical Officer, and Eric Damery, Vice President of Software Product Management. The three longtime contributors to the blindness field discuss their history and the history of Freedom Scientific and JAWS.

In December's FSCast, we speak with Bryan Carver, Freedom Scientific's Director of Technical Support. We discuss things Tech Support can help with, and how to make the most of your interaction with Tech Support.

FSCast is a regular feature provided by Freedom Scientific; we invite you to subscribe today. You can always listen to previous podcasts at our archive site where you can download previous episodes in MP3 format.