(If Narrator’s Setting Panel doesn’t appear it could be turned off by default – you may need to contact your IT department).

Narrator’s Settings Panel is opened by pressing and holding the keyboard keys Ctrl + Win + N.

To get started the first thing to do is to open Narrator’s Settings Panel and adjust the Settings. You only need to make the following adjustments once and everything is located in the same panel, just scroll down, following each of the 8 stages until you come to the end, then finally close the panel. Once everything is set up in Narrator’s Settings you can use a quick keystroke ‘Ctrl + Win + Enter’ to open and close Narrator. However, with a bit of tinkering with Narrator’s Settings, you can use it as a free and effective text reader, which will read aloud as you type or read content in Word and other Microsoft applications such as PowerPoint as well as Office 365 online applications, even with a simple mouse click. Like most screen readers, Narrator requires a knowledge of keyboard shortcuts to maximise its use, particularly for navigating the desktop and accessing folders, files and documents. With the release of Windows 10 (version 1903) in May 2019, a new updated, fully-fledged Narrator screen reader was included as part of the release. Narrator was designed to open up accessibility as a screen reader for visually impaired users, but sadly lacked the power and features of its contemporaries such as JAWS and the now-defunct Windows Eyes.

Windows Narrator has been a Windows accessibility feature as far back as Windows 2000.

Turn narrator off windows 10