Hal software compatibility list

Hal should work well with the vast majority of Windows 95 and Windows NT products. Below are brief notes on how to customize some applications for best use:

Corel Quattro Pro 6

Doing the following will ensure that Hal runs optimally with Quattro Pro 6:

1. Select "Spreadsheet" display by entering Quattro Pro's "View" menu using ALT+V and then selecting the option "Spreadsheet" by pressing S.

2. Turn off Quattro Pro's toolbars as they just contain buttons that are shortcuts to features that are already in Quattro Pro's menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard without going into Navigation mode. Also, some of the items on the toolbars sometimes draw the focus away from the main spreadsheet window. Enter Quattro Pro's "View" menu by pressing ALT+V and select the option "Display" by pressing D. Deselect the following features:

"Show Toolbar" by pressing T.
"Show Property Band" by pressing Y.
"Show Status Line" by pressing U.
"Show Input Line" by pressing S.
"Show Scroll Indicators" by pressing C.
"Show Balloon Help" by pressing W.

In the "Notebook Options" group deselect:

"Vertical Scroll Bar" by pressing V.
"Horizontal Scroll Bar" by pressing Z.
"Paper Tabs" by pressing P.

TAB to the "Clock Display" group and then press N for "None".

TAB to the "Objects" group and then press E for "Hide".

Note: Some of the above features may already be deselected in the "Display" settings by default. The features should remain deselected. Pressing the appropriate letter will automatically select/deselect the feature and so it's important to ensure the settings are correct.

Tips on using Quattro Pro with Hal

1. To adjust the width of a column to prevent data "overlapping", move to the cell containing the longest data entry and follow these steps:

Go into the "Active Block" dialog by pressing F12
Go into Hal's Navigation Mode and locate the option "Column Width".
Select "Column Width" by pressing ENTER.
Move into the "Options" group by pressing TAB and select "Auto Width" by pressing A.
Press ENTER to make this change.

2. To have Quattro Pro present the formulae in cells rather than the sum of the formulae follow these steps:

Go into the "Active Block" dialog by pressing F12.
Go into Hal's Navigation Mode and locate the option "Numeric Format".
Select "Numeric Format" by pressing ENTER.
Select "Text" and press ENTER.

Note: If you wish to adjust all column widths or cell formats at one time go to "Select All" in the "Edit" menu by pressing ALT+E then A.

Useful keystrokes

Function	Key press
Go to a specific cell location using Quattro's "Go to..." facility	F5, or ALT+E, G
Edit a cell formula	F2
Undo last action/command	CONTROL+Z

Lotus 1-2-3 r5

Hal works reasonably well with Lotus 1-2-3 r5. Doing the following will improve Hal's performance when used in conjunction with Lotus 1-2-3 r5:

1. Turn off Lotus 1-2-3's toolbars as they just contain buttons that are shortcuts to features that are in the menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard without going into Navigation mode. Also, some of the items on the toolbars sometimes draw the focus away from the main spreadsheet window.

To turn off these features:

a) Enter Lotus 1-2-3's "View" menu by pressing ALT+V and select the option "Set View Preferences" by pressing P.
b) Deselect the following features:

"Worksheet tabs", by pressing T.
"Scroll bars", by pressing S.
"Chart, drawings & pictures", by pressing C.
"Smart icons", by pressing I.
"Edit line", by pressing E.
"Status bar", by pressing B.

c) Set these changes to be the default settings by pressing M and then ENTER.
d) TAB to the "OK" button and then press ENTER to confirm these changes.

Note: Some of the above features may already be deselected in the "Set View Preferences" settings by default. The features should remain deselected. Pressing the appropriate letter will automatically select/deselect the feature and so it's important to ensure the settings are correct.

2. If you are familiar with Lotus 1-2-3, you may benefit from the selection of the following options within the "User Options" property sheet located in the "Tools" menu:

a) To select "Skip welcome dialog box":

Enter Lotus 1-2-3's "Tools" menu by pressing ALT+T and select the
option "User Options" by pressing O.
Select "Skip welcome dialog box", by pressing K.

b) To ensure that you go directly to a blank worksheet when selecting "New File":

Go into "User Options" again by pressing ALT+T, then O.
Select "Skip new file dialog box" by pressing P.

Tips on using Lotus 1-2-3 r5 with Hal

1. Repeat the process but deselect "Formulas" if you wish to revert back to the option where the sum of the formula is presented in the cell rather than the formula itself.

2. To adjust the width of a column to prevent data "overlapping", move to the cell containing the longest data entry and follow these steps:

a) Enter Lotus 1-2-3's "Style" menu by pressing ALT+S and select the option "Column Width" by pressing C.
b) Select the option "Fit widest cell" by pressing ALT+F.
c) Initiate the change by pressing ENTER.

Useful keys

Function	Key press
Go to a specific cell location using 1-2-3's "Go to..." facility	F5, or ALT+E, G
Edit a cell formula	F2
Undo last action/command	CONTROL+Z

Lotus Word Pro 97

We do not recommend using Hal with Lotus Word Pro 97 as many Word Pro dialog boxes contain owner-drawn controls.

Microsoft Access 2.0

Hal works well with constructing databases and also with pre-constructed databases' front end. However, it does not work too well whilst browsing tables.

Microsoft Encarta 97

Microsoft Encarta 97's user-interface is completely full of owner-drawn controls including the menu system. However, it is accessible to some extent using Hal's Navigation mode.

Microsoft Excel 4.0, 5.0 & 7.0

Doing the following will ensure that Hal runs optimally with Microsoft
Excel:

1. Turn off Excel's toolbar as it just contains buttons that are shortcuts to features that are in the menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard without going into Navigation mode.

To turn off Excel's toolbar:

Enter Excel's "View" menu by pressing ALT+V and select the option "Toolbar" by pressing T.
In the "Toolbar" list-box deselect all the toolbar's that are currently selected. To do this move down the list using the CURSOR DOWN key and press SPACEBAR to deselect each of the selected toolbars.
Press TAB until you reach the "OK" button and then press ENTER to implement the change.

2. Turn off Excel's status bar as it just contains unimportant text that is read out by Hal every time it's updated. The removal of Excel's status bar means that the application's focus is always on the more important data on the worksheet.

To turn off Excel's status bar enter the "View" menu by pressing ALT+V and deselect the option "Status Bar" by pressing S.

3. Turn off Excel's formula bar as it draws Hal's focus away from the current worksheet each time the formula bar is updated, i.e. each time you change cell position, making Hal unnecessarily repeat data twice.

To turn off Excel's formula bar enter the "View" menu by pressing ALT+V and deselect the option "Formula Bar" by pressing F.

Tips on using Excel with Hal

1. To have Excel present the formulae in cells rather than the sum of the formulae select the check box "Formulas" by doing the following:

Enter Excel's "Tools" menu by pressing ALT+T and select the option "Options" by pressing O.
From the View property sheet, press TAB until you reach the "Window Options" group and then select the "Formulas" check box.
Press ENTER to accept these changes.

Repeat the process but deselect "Formulas" if you wish to revert to the option where the sum of the formula is presented in the cell rather than the formula itself.

2. To adjust the width of a column to prevent data "overlapping", move to the cell containing the longest data entry and follow these steps:

Enter Excel's "Format" menu by pressing ALT+O and select the option "Column" by pressing C.
Select "AutoFit Selection" by pressing A.

Useful keys

Function	Key press
Go to a specific cell location using Excel's "Go to..." facility	CONTROL+G
Cell format features	CONTROL+1
Undo last action/command	CONTROL+Z
Repeat last command/action	CONTROL+Y

Microsoft Excel 97

Doing the following will ensure that Hal runs optimally with Microsoft Excel 97:

1. Turn off Excel's vertical scroll bar.

To turn off Excel's vertical scroll bar, first enter the "Tools" menu by pressing ALT+T and then select the option "Options" by pressing O. If you are not in the "View" property sheet then press CONTROL+TAB until you are. Finally, press ALT+V to deselect the "Vertical scroll bar" check box.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3

Hal works well with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, but doing the following will ensure that it runs optimally:

1. Turn off Explorer's toolbar as it just contains buttons that are shortcuts for items that are already in the menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard (without going into Hal's Navigation mode) and are announced every time you use the Hal speak key for reading the current window.

To turn off Explorer's toolbar, enter Explorer's "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option "Toolbar" by pressing T.

2. Turn off Explorer's status bar as it just contains unimportant text that is read out by Hal every time it is updated. Sometimes the updating of Explorer's status bar causes Hal to mute saying something of importance on the screen and read out the unimportant information on the status bar instead.

To turn off Explorer's status bar, enter Explorer's "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option "Status Bar" by pressing B.

Turning off Explorer's toolbar and status bar also means that the application's focus is always in the web page so you never need to press TAB to move the focus to the web page.

3. In Hal's Control Panel set Hal to announce changes in text color by activating the "Color Change" check box in both the "Text Areas" and "Navigation Mode" property sheets. This helps you locate hyperlinks and hot spots easily on a web page. (Hyperlinks and hot spots are usually displayed in a different color.)

4. To display web pages more quickly you can configure Internet Explorer 3.0 not to show pictures and videos.

To do this:

Enter Explorer's "View" menu using ALT+V and select the option "Options" by pressing O.
De-select the check boxes "Show pictures" and "Show videos" in the group entitled "Multimedia".

Tips for using Internet Explorer 3.0 with Hal

In general the "accessible-ness" of a web page depends largely on the person who designed it. That is to say, as well as having text, the page can contain bitmaps (pictures). Sometimes these bitmaps can contain important text (displayed in a highly stylized way) or contain a hotspot or hyperlink to another web page. There is no way a screen reader can read text that is displayed as a bitmap (picture) without employing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Here are some tips that make Internet Explorer easy to use with Hal:

1. Hal should automatically read out the web page as it appears on the screen. Since Internet Explorer doesn't place a cursor in the web page the best way of examining a web page in detail is to go into Hal's Navigation mode and browse the page that way. Remember that you can activate hyperlinks from Navigation mode by pressing ENTER.

2. If the web page is greater than one screenful you can use the following keys from Live mode to navigate the web page:

Function	Keypress
Go to next page	SHIFT+BACKSPACE
Go to previous page	BACKSPACE
Display a shortcut menu for a hyperlink	SHIFT+F10
Move between frames	SHIFT+CONTROL+TAB
Scroll toward the beginning of a page	UP ARROW
Scroll toward the end of a page	DOWN ARROW
Scroll toward the beginning of a page in larger pages	PAGE UP
Scroll toward the end of a page in larger increments	PAGE DOWN
Move to the beginning of a page	HOME
Move to the end of a page	END

3. With Internet Explorer 3.0 you can explore a web page from the keyboard by pressing TAB and SHIFT+TAB to navigate forward and backward between just the hyperlinks and hot spots.

Working with Internet Explorer 3.0

You may find the following keyboard shortcuts of use when using Internet Explorer:

Function	Keypress
Refresh the current page	F5
Stop downloading a page	ESC
Go to a new location	CONTROL+O
Open a new window	CONTROL+N
Save the current page	CONTROL+S
Print the current page or active frame	CONTROL+P
Activate a selected hyperlink	ENTER

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4

Hal works well with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, but doing the following will ensure that it runs optimally:

1. Turn off Internet Explorer's Status Bar.

This can be done by entering Internet Explorer's View menu using ALT+V and then deselecting the Status Bar option by pressing S.

Doing this will ensure that the application's focus will be in the window containing the web page by default.

2. Alter the following options in the Advanced property sheet of Internet Explorer 4's Properties, as they will enable Internet Explorer 4 to work better with screen readers in general:

Turn on "Move system caret with focus/selection changes" in the Accessibility branch.
Turn on "Always expand alt text for images" in the Accessibility branch.
Turn off "Use AutoComplete" in the Browsing branch. This will stop Internet Explorer from trying to guess what URL you are typing in the Address Bar and try to complete it automatically for you. This can be very confusing, as this feature keeps altering the name of the URL as you're typing.

3. Turn off the Links option in the Toolbars sub-menu of Explorer's View menu. This is because in Explorer 4.0 you can TAB from object to object and removing Links means there's once less TAB to go through to put the focus back onto the web page again.

Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0

Hal works well with Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0, but doing the following will ensure that it runs optimally:

1. Don't use "Full Screen" mode. "Full Screen" mode makes the menu bar disappear and Hal may not read the menus out properly. It also means that sometimes Hal doesn't recognize window boundaries correctly.

2. Turn off Visual C's toolbars as they just contain buttons that are shortcuts for items that are already in the menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard.

To turn off the toolbars:

Enter Visual C's "View" menu using ALT+V and enter the "Toolbar" dialog by pressing T.
Deselect all of Visual C's toolbars by deselecting each of the associated check boxes one by one. When you have finished deselecting the toolbars press ENTER.

3. Disable Visual C's "Docking Views" as these cause status windows to overlap the main window.

To turn off "Docking Views":

Enter Visual C's "Tools" menu using ALT+T and enter the "Options" dialog by pressing O.
Press CONTROL+TAB until you get to the "Workspace" property sheet.
Deselect all of Visual C's "Docking Views" by deselecting each of the associated check boxes one by one. When you have finished, press ENTER.

Microsoft Word 6.0 & 7.0

Hal works well with Microsoft Word 6.0 and 7.0, but doing the following will ensure that it runs optimally:

1. Turn off the ruler as it just contains a graphical representation of a ruler which Hal reads out every time Word is started and is also announced every time you use the Hal speak key for reading the current window.

To turn off the ruler, enter Word's "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option "Ruler" by pressing R.

Known problems with Word 6.0a:

If you enter Word 6.0a's Help menu and select "Contents", the help system crashes with Hal. This problem is due to a bug that exists in Word 6.0a.

Windows Calculator

Hal does not work very well with the Windows Calculator. However, Calculator is accessible from the keyboard. To get a list of the keys to operate the calculator, look up "Keyboard equivalents" in the Calculator help.

To read the result of a calculation press Hal's Read Window key.

Windows WordPad

Hal works well with WordPad, but doing the following will ensure that it runs optimally:

1. Turn off WordPad's ruler as it just contains a graphical representation of a ruler which Hal reads out every time WordPad is started and is also announced every time you use the Hal speak key for reading the current window.

To turn off the ruler, enter WordPad's "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option
"Ruler" by pressing R.

2. Turn off WordPad's toolbar as it just contains buttons that are shortcuts for items that are already in the menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard.

To turn off the toolbar, enter the "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option "Toolbar" by pressing T

Microsoft Works 4.0

We recommend that you restrict the use of Hal to the word processor and spreadsheet modules in MS Works 4.0.

Doing the following will ensure that the Microsoft Works word processor runs optimally with Hal:

1. Turn off the ruler as it just contains a graphical representation of a ruler. From the "View" menu choose "Ruler".

Known problems

1. Works Wizards do not speak correctly as they contain owner-drawn controls.

2. When you enter the Works Tools Property Sheet of the Works Task Launcher for the first time, although the focus is on the Word Processor button, all incidental text is spoken.

3. The default address books are not usable with Hal unless you use Navigation Mode. However, once you are familiar with the layout of a particular address book you should find that Hal speaks adequately.

Doing the following will ensure that Hal runs optimally with the spreadsheet module of Microsoft Works v4.0:

1. Turn off Works toolbar as it just contains buttons that are shortcuts to features that are already in Works menu system. These buttons are inaccessible from the keyboard. Enter the "View" menu using ALT+V and deselect the option "Toolbar" by pressing T.

2. Turn off Works Help box as on-line help is already available within Works and the help information available in the Help box is only accessible through Hal's Navigation Mode.

To turn off Works' Help box, enter Work's "Help" menu using ALT+H and deselect the option "Hide Help" by pressing H.

3. On re-running the Microsoft Works spreadsheet the "Toolbar" and "Help box" will return. To permanently prevent these features running:

Enter the "Tools" menu using ALT+T and select the option "Options" by pressing O.
Go to the "View" dialog box by pressing V.
Deselect the relevant "... on start up" check boxes by pressing TAB to move through the list and then pressing SPACEBAR to deselect the option.

Tips on using Works v4.0 spreadsheet with Hal

1. To have Works present the formulas in cells rather than the sum of the formula select "Formulas" in the "View" menu by entering the "View" menu and selecting the option "Formulas" by pressing F.

Repeat the process to deselect "Formulas" if you wish to revert to the option where the sum of the formula is presented in the cell rather than the formula itself.

2. To adjust the width of a column to prevent data "overlapping", move to the cell containing the longest data entry and follow these steps:

Enter the "Format" menu by pressing ALT+O.
Select the option "Column Width" by pressing W.
Select the "Best Fit" button by pressing ALT+B.

Useful keys

Function	Key press
Go to a specific cell location using the "Go to..." facility	CONTROL+G
Undo last command/action	CONTROL+Z
Easy Calculator (formula creation wizard)	ALT+T, C

Corel WordPerfect 7.0

We do not recommend the use of WordPerfect 7.0 with Hal at present. The main reason for this is that the spell checker is not fully accessible from the keyboard. You cannot access the "not found" option for the incorrectly spelt word.

However, if you need to use WordPerfect 7.0, you can optimize its performance with Hal by doing the following:

1. Turn off the Power Bar, Ruler and Status Bar:

Enter the "View" menu and select "Toolbars/Ruler"; a dialog box will appear allowing you to deselect the Power Bar, Ruler and Status Bar.

2. Only use TrueType or printer fonts.

3. You will also need To turn off the "Quick Tips" as these change the application's focus when they appear and can make the navigation of menus difficult.

To turn off Quick Tips:

Enter the "Edit menu" by pressing ALT+E and enter the "Preferences" dialog box by pressing E. This dialog box contains owner-drawn controls so it does not speak very well, so please follow these instructions carefully.
Press TAB once and then press ENTER to enter the "Environment Preferences" dialog box.
Press TAB until you reach the "Show Quick Tips" check box and then press SPACEBAR to deselect this option.
Press ENTER to accept the changes and return to the "Preferences" dialog box.
Finally press TAB until you reach the "Close" button and then press the SPACEBAR to return to WordPerfect's document window.

Corel WordPerfect 8.0

Because WordPerfect 8.0 does not use standard Windows check boxes and instead draws its own, the following tips will prove useful:

1. When navigating around a WordPerfect 8.0 dialog box press Hal's mute key as you move from control to control. This is because the way that WordPerfect draws it’s unselected check boxes causes Hal to "babble". However, you can download a patch from Corel's FTP site to fix this problem. Select this hyperlink to download the WP8ACC.EXE patch.

2. Use Hal's read current focus key to read the current control in a dialog box. If Hal doesn't announce the control's type then you can assume that it's an unselected check box.