NVDA vs JAWS: the same screen-reader tasks, key by key
NVDA and JAWS share far more single-letter web navigation than their reputations suggest: H for headings, F for form fields, B for buttons, T for tables, L for lists and G for graphics are identical in both. The table pairs each task with the key from the NV Access quick reference and the Freedom Scientific hotkeys page, desktop keyboard layout in both cases, and a dash marks a task the other reader handles without a dedicated key.
| Task | NVDA | JAWS |
|---|---|---|
| Stop speech | Ctrl | Ctrl |
| Say All (read to the end) | NVDA + Down | Insert + Down |
| Read the window title | NVDA + T | Insert + T |
| Read the whole window | NVDA + B | Insert + B |
| Next heading | H | H |
| Next link | K | Tab |
| Next unvisited link | U | U |
| Next form field | F | F |
| Next button | B | B |
| Next radio button | R | A |
| Next table | T | T |
| Next list | L | L |
| Next graphic | G | G |
| Next landmark | D | — |
| List headings / links / elements | NVDA + F7 | Insert + F6 |
| Find text on the page | NVDA + Ctrl + F | Ctrl + Insert + F |
| Find next | NVDA + F3 | F3 |
| Toggle browse / virtual mode | NVDA + Space | — |
| Keyboard help mode | — | Insert + 1 |
| OCR the current window or object | NVDA + R | Insert + Space, O, W |
| Report the clipboard | NVDA + C | Windows + Insert + X |
| Cycle speech mode | NVDA + S | Insert + Space, S |
| Quit the screen reader | NVDA + Q | — |
The two letters that catch people who switch are K and R. In NVDA, K moves to the next link and R to the next radio button; in JAWS, K moves to the next PlaceMarker, links are reached with Tab and Shift + Tab, and the radio-button key is A. JAWS also groups several commands under layered keystrokes, where Insert + Space is pressed and released before a second key, which is why speech mode and OCR appear as sequences in the JAWS column. NVDA reaches its lists of elements through one dialog (NVDA + F7) that filters by type, whereas JAWS has a separate list key per element type: Insert + F6 for headings, Insert + F7 for links and Insert + F5 for form fields.
Modifier naming differs but the physical key is usually the same. The NVDA key is Insert by default and can be Caps Lock; the JAWS key is Insert in desktop layout and Caps Lock in laptop layout. Laptop layouts remap the numeric-keypad review and reading commands onto letters in both products, so the desktop rows shown here are the ones to compare when a user moves from one reader to the other. Where NVDA calls it browse mode and JAWS the virtual cursor, the underlying behaviour is the same: letters navigate until you enter an edit field, at which point typing passes through.
Both full tables live on this site with their sources: the NVDA page reproduces the NV Access commands reference and the JAWS page reproduces Freedom Scientific's hotkeys table, each with a note on the laptop equivalent where it differs. A previous version of the JAWS page had copied NVDA's K-for-link mapping by mistake; that was corrected against the vendor table and is the reason the two are compared here row by row rather than assumed to match.
Full references: NVDA (101) · JAWS (104) · all comparisons