Page 30 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

4. Turn Narrator on.

Narrator begins reading what’s on the screen.

Here, by contrast, is how you’d get to exactly the same place using the
search method:

1. Press ; type enough of narrator to make Narrator appear in

the results list; press Enter.

There you go. One step instead of four.

(Of course, if you’re really good, you could just use the Narrator keyboard
shortcut, Ctrl+ +Enter.)

Now, you’d be forgiven for exclaiming, “What?! Get to things by typing? I

thought the whole idea behind the Windows revolution was to eliminate the
DOS-age practice of typing commands!”

Not exactly. Typing has always offered a faster, more efficient way of

getting to places and doing things; what everyone hated was the memorizing
of commands to type.

But the search box requires no memorization; that’s the beauty of it. You

can be vague. You can take a guess. And, almost every time, Windows
knows what you want and offers it in the list.

For that reason, this book usually provides the most direct route to a certain

program or function: the one that involves the search box. There’s always a
longer, slower, mousier alternative, but, hey: This book is plenty fat already,
and the rainforests aren’t getting any bigger.

About Alt-Clicking

Here’s another bit of shorthand you’ll find in this book (and others):
instructions to Alt-click something. That means you should hold down the

Alt key and then click before releasing the key. If you understand that
much, then the meaning of instructions like “Ctrl-click” and “Shift-click”
should be clear.