Gmail (Basic HTML) Guide

A guide for Jaws users, written by David Bailes at Chorlton Workshop for hsbp. More guides are available on the Jaws Guides page of the VIP Software Guides website.

Contents

Introduction

This is a guide to using Google's web-based email. In most countries it's known as Gmail, but in Germany, Austria and the UK it's known as Google Mail, due to existing trademarks.

Google Mail is available in two different views: Standard, and Basic HTML. The Basic HTML view is primarily aimed at old web browsers which can't properly display the Standard view, and it contains less functionality than the Standard view.

For versions of Jaws up to and including version 8, Google Mail is much more accessible in the Basic HTML view than in the Standard view, and this guide is written for the Basic HTML view. For later versions of Jaws, and using the current version of a web browser, the Standard view is also accessible.

There are two ways which Google Mail uses to organise your messages which are central to understanding how to use Google Mail: conversations and labels. These are introduced in the next two sections.

Conversations

A conversation consists of one or more messages with the same subject. When you view the contents of any of your folders, you're shown a list of conversations, rather than a list of messages. Because the messages have been grouped into conversations, this reduces the number of items in your folders, and makes finding messages easier.

The next three sections give examples of how conversations are formed.

Example 1

You send an email with the subject Elton John concert to a friend Paul, asking him whether he wants to go. A conversation with the subject Elton John Concert and containing your message is automatically created, and appears in your Sent Mail folder. Because the conversation consists of only a single message, you might like to think of it as a potential conversation.

Paul replies to your message (without changing the subject). Because Paul's message has the same subject as the Elton John Concert conversation, it is added to this conversation. Also because the conversation now contains messages you've both sent and received, it now appears in both your Sent Mail and Inbox folders.

Example 2

A friend Susan sends you an message with the subject Harry Potter, asking you what you thought of the ending of the latest book. A conversation with the subject Harry Potter and containing Susan's message is created, and appears in your Inbox.

You reply to this message, without changing the subject. The message you send is added to the Harry Potter conversation, which now appears in both your Sent Mail and Inbox folders.

If Susan then replies to your reply, then this message is also added to the Harry Potter conversation.

Example 3

You've subscribed to the Jaws For Windows mailing list. Someone on the list posts a message with the subject Jaws 9 Beta, and there are 10 replies by other people to this message. Then there will be a “Jaws 9 Beta” conversation in your Inbox consisting of 11 messages. If you reply to the message, this will be added to the conversation, and the conversation will also now appear in your Sent Mail folder.

Labels

Most web-based email services and email clients like Outlook Express provide the facility for creating your own folders, and moving messages to these folders so that they're organised and so easier to find.

In contrast, rather than using folders, Google Mail allows you to create your own labels, and then apply one or more labels to a conversation. Using labels has the advantage that if a conversation can be equally well classified by more than one label, then you can apply all these labels. Using folders, you have to choose a single folder, even though the message might equally correctly placed in other folders. So using labels rather than folders provides a better categorization of messages, which in turn can make messages easier to find.

Signing in

If you haven't already got a Google Mail account, then obtaining one is described in the Creating a Google Mail account section at the end of this guide.

The first time you sign in you're taken to the Standard view of your account. However, you can then switch to the basic HTML view, and set this to be the default view each time you sign in.

  1. Go the the web page with the address mail.google.com.
  2. The initial focus is in the Username edit box. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, type in your username, and then TAB to the Password edit box.
  3. Type in your password, and press ENTER. You are taken to your Inbox in the Standard view.
  4. Using the Links list dialog (INSERT + F7) open the basic HTML link.
  5. You're taken to the basic HTML view of your account. The second link on the page is Set basic HTML as default view. If you open this link, then when you sign in you'll be taken directly to the basic HTML view.

Page Structure

Almost all the Google Mail web pages use the same overall page structure. So before going on to describe how to read and send messages, this section describes this overall structure and how to navigate it. Each page in the Basic HTML view contains the following elements or sections — it's only the main content section which varies from page to page, everything else is present on every page:

The navigation section contains the following elements:

Some of the folder and label links can have a number in parenthesis after them, and this is highlighted by them also being made level 3 headings. The significance of these numbers is:

Page navigation

Reading messages

This is an outline of how to read the messages in one of the folders:

  1. Open one of the folder links, which are immediately after the level 2 heading Folders. After you first sign in, you're automatically taken to your Inbox folder, so to immediately read the messages in your Inbox, you can omit this step.
  2. You're taken to a page which contains a list of conversations in that folder, and pages like these will be referred to as Conversation list pages. The list of conversations is, in fact, formatted as a table, with the columns giving various details about the conversations. To view a particular conversation, move to the subject of the conversation, which is a link, and open it.
  3. You're taken to a page which contains all the messages in the conversation, and these pages will be referred to as Conversation pages. On this page you can easily navigate to the messages which you want to read.

The next two main sections describe Conversation list pages and Conversation pages in detail.

Conversation list page

When you open any of the folders, you're taken to a page containing a list of the conversations in that folder. This section describes the structure and navigation of a Conversation list page. In fact, as described latter in the guide, when you choose to view the conversations with a particular label, or search for messages, you're also taken to page containing a list of conversations, and these pages all have the same structure.

A Conversation list page has a title which describes the list of conversations, for example, Inbox. Its main content section contains the following elements:

Conversation table

Each row in the table contains the details of a conversation. The table has four columns, and up to fifty rows.

The columns of the table are as follows:

  1. A check box, which by default is unchecked. These check boxes are used together with the Action buttons as described in the Action buttons section below.
  2. In most lists of conversations, the second column contains the names of the senders of the messages in the conversation. If there is more than one message in the conversation, then the number of messages is given in parentheses after the names.
  3. The subject of the conversation, which is a link. To open a conversation, you open this link, and you are then taken to a Conversation page. If you're viewing the conversations other than those in the Inbox, then if the conversation is also present in the Inbox, then the subject is prefixed with the word Inbox. If any of the messages contain one or more attachments, then Jaws says "attachment" before the subject.
  4. The last column contains either a time if it refers to today, or else a date. The meaning of the time depends on which folder is being viewed. For example, for the Inbox, the date/time refers to when the latest incoming message in the conversation was sent. For the Sent Mail folder, the date/time refers to when the latest outgoing message in the conversation was sent. The conversations in the table are ordered by this date/time.

Conversations which contain unread messages are highlighted to sighted users by making the background colour of the row a different colour, and using bold text. This information is not available to Jaws users, and Jaws does not announce if a conversation contains unread messages. However, if needed, you can easily get a list of the conversations containing unread messages by using Google Mail's search, which is described in detail in the Searching section. To get this list:

  1. Move to the first edit box on the page.
  2. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, type is:unread, and then press ENTER. You're taken to a Conversation list page containing the conversations which have unread messages.

Action buttons

The Actions buttons which appear both before and after the Conversation table are used together with the check boxes in the Conversation. For example, to delete one or more conversations in the Inbox:

  1. In the Conversation table, check the check boxes of the conversations you want to delete.
  2. Move to the Delete action button, for example by pressing B three times, and press it.

The number and the actions of these buttons depends on which list of conversations is being viewed. The general pattern is:

For example, for the Inbox, there are buttons to Archive, Report Spam, and Delete. The More Actions combo box contains options to Mark as read, Mark as unread, Add star, Remove star, and Apply and Remove any labels you're created.

Conversation list page navigation.

Conversation table navigation

To move around in a Conversation table which contains more than one row, you can use any of the following keystrokes:

Conversation page

When you open a subject link in the Conversation table of a Conversation list page, you're taken to a Conversation page. On this page, you can read all the messages in the conversation, and both act of the conversation as a whole, and the individual messages in the conversation.

The title of a Conversation page is the subject of the conversation, and the main content section contains the following elements:

Messages

Messages can be in one of two formats: expanded or collapsed. In the expanded format, the message text and all relevant information is given, whereas in the collapsed format only the sender, date, and whether the message has one or more attachments is given.

When you first move to a Conversation page, the last message and all unread messages are expanded — the rest are collapsed. Because only expanded messages have a heading, this makes it easy to find the unread messages in a conversation.

If one or more of the messages is collapsed, then before the subject level 2 heading, there's an Expand all link, which expands all the collapsed messages. If all the messages are expanded, then there's a Collapse all link, which collapses all but the last message.

Expanded Message

An expanded message contains the following elements:

Collapsed message

A collapsed message contains the following elements:

Note that when there are a large number of collapsed messages, these are sometimes merged into a single single collapsed message, which contains text such as “17 hidden messages –”, followed by a Show link. If you open this link, all the hidden messages are shown as individual collapsed messages.

Conversation page navigation

Downloading attachments

As described above, whether a message has one or more attachments is indicated by “attachment” just before the date and time when the message was sent. In an expanded message, the links for viewing and downloading the attachments appear after the text of the message.

The following information and links are given for each attachment:

In addition, if there's more than one attachment, then before the information about the individual attachments, there is the number of attachments, followed by either a link to Scan and download all attachments, or Download all attachments, depending on whether you're using Internet Explorer of Firefox respectively. If you open this link, then a dialog opens which allows you to either open or save a zip file containing all the attachments.

If you're in a message that contains one or more attachments, then a useful method of moving to the links to view or download the attachments is to use the links list dialog (INSERT + F7), to find the next link beginning with Scan, if using Internet Explorer, or Download, if using Firefox, and move to that link.

Quick reply

The last message on a Conversation page has a number of controls after the message text that allow you to quickly compose and send a reply, without having to go through the Compose Mail page. These controls are:

So if you're in the last message on a Conversation page, you can just read down to the edit box, or press E, press ENTER to go into Forms mode, write the message, TAB to the Send button and press it.

Note that this method does not allow you to change any fields of the message, or attach any files.

Sending messages

There are a number of ways of composing a message which you want to send. Most of these use the Compose Mail page, which is described below. In addition, you can also use the Quick Reply feature which is only available on the last message of a conversation, which is described in Quick reply section above.

To compose a message using the Compose Mail page:

Compose Mail page

The Compose Mail page has the title “Compose Mail”, and the main content section contains the following elements:

So to send a message:

  1. When you're taken to the Compose Mail page, Jaws says that the initial focus is in the To: edit box. If you're using the Firefox browser this is the case, and so you can simply press ENTER to go into forms mode, and start entering stuff. However, if you're using Internet Explorer, the initial focus is in fact on the Send button before the edit box (you can press INSERT + UP ARROW to verify this). So you have to press E to move to the To: edit box, and then press ENTER to go into Forms mode.
  2. Carry on pressing TAB to move between controls, and typing into the edit boxes. Adding attachments is covered in the next section.
  3. After you've typed your message in the message edit box, simply TAB to the Send button and press it.

Adding attachments

To add attachments, you use the three controls which are between the subject: and message edit boxes: The Attachments edit box, the Browse button, and the Attach More Files button. Note that if you TAB or SHIFT + TAB to the Browse button in Forms mode, then Jaws does not say Browse button, it says nothing. (The Browse label gets appended to the Attachments label of the edit box for some reason.)

If you want to attach only a single file to a message:

  1. Move to the Browse button, which immediately follows the Attachments: edit box. Press the button using SPACEBAR — if you use ENTER this immediately sends the message.
  2. A Choose File dialog opens, which has the same format as a standard Open dialog. Select a file, and press ENTER.
  3. You are returned to the Compose page, with the focus on the Browse button. Jaws reads the full path of the file that has been entered into the Attachments edit box. (Rather than browsing you can just type the full path of the filename into the edit box, but browsing is normally easier.)

If you want to attach multiple files to a message:

  1. Press the Attach More Files button.
  2. You are taken to a page which has the title Attach Files. The main content section of the page contains:
    • Done and Cancel buttons
    • A table with 2 columns and 10 rows. Each row is made up of an edit box and a Browse button.
    • Attach More Files button. If you really want to attach more than 10 files.
    • Done and Cancel buttons
  3. The easiest way of selecting files to attach is to use the Browse buttons, so there's no need to go into Forms mode on this page. Move to the first Browse button — using the quick navigation key B is one way to get there. Then follow the instructions which are given above for attaching a singe file.
  4. To attach the other files just move to the next browse button a repeat the procedure.
  5. When you're finished attaching files, move to one of the Done buttons, and press it.
  6. You're returned to the Compose Mail page. Above the Attachments edit box there are now a series of check boxes for the attached files.

Drafts

If you open a conversation in the Drafts folder, then what happens depends on the number of messages in the conversation:

Contact list

Whenever you reply to or forward an message, the address of the sender of the message is automatically added to your contact list.

On the Contact list page, you can select contacts for a new message, and also delete and edit contacts. To go to this page, open the Contacts link which is in the navigation section of every page, and which is also a level 3 heading. The title of the page is Contact list, and the main content section contains the following elements:

As with Conversation list pages, a quick way of moving to the the first cell in the table is to press CTRL + HOME, and then X to move to the first check box.

To compose a message to one or more of your contacts, simply check one or more of the check boxes, and press one of the Compose buttons. You are taken to the Compose mail page, where the To: field has been filled in for you. If you have more than a small number of contacts, then the the Select a Check Box dialog (INSERT + CTRL + X), is useful for checking check boxes, since in this dialog you can use the first character of the contact to quickly find it.

Similarly, to delete one or more contacts, check one or more of the check boxes, and then press one of the Delete buttons.

Editing contacts

To edit a contact, you open a contact name link, and this takes you to a Contact page where you can edit the contact's details, such as their email address.

To find a contact name link, you can just press X till you reach the persons name, then press DOWN ARROW or TAB to move to the contact name link, and then open it. Alternatively, if you have a large number of contacts, you can use either of these methods:

After opening the Contact name link, you're taken to a Contact page which has the title Contact, and its main content section contains the following elements:

So, after making some changes, move to the Save button, and press it. You are returned to the Contact list page. Alternatively you can press the Cancel button.

Searching

Google Mail's search is extremely flexible and powerful. To perform a simple search:

  1. Move to the Search edit box, which is the first form control on the page.
  2. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, type in one or more words, and press ENTER.
  3. You are taken to a page which contains a list of the conversations which contain messages which match the search words. The title of the page, and the level 2 heading of the main content section is Search results for: “search words”.

The defaults for searches are:

To perform more advanced searches, you can either use search operators in the text you enter into the search edit box, or you can use a form for entering various search options. These methods are described in the following two sections.

Search operators

By default, words used for searching are matched against the words in all the fields of the message and in the message text. Search operators allow you to specify a single field of the message for matching, and also other attributes of the message, for example whether it's been read, which folder it's in, etc.

Most of the operators are fairly straightforward, but the use of parentheses can be more difficult to grasp. The following sections give some simple examples, then some examples using parentheses, and finally the definitions of all the search operators.

Simple examples

Examples using parentheses

Parentheses are used for grouping words to ensure that search expressions have the intended meaning. Here are some examples:

Definitions of all search operators

Operator Definition
is:unread
is:read		 messages which are unread or read respectively
from:someone Specifies the sender. “someonerdquo; can be either one or more names, or an email address. Examples: from:susan, from:(mickey mouse), and from:pluto@disney.com.
to:someone Specifies the recipient. “someone” can be either one more names, or an email address.
subject:something subject includes “something”.
label:something label is “something”. If the label consists of more than one word, you have to put hyphens between the words, for example label:donald-duck.
has:attachment messages with one or more attachments
filename:some filename messages with the attachment “some filename”, for example, filename:jokes.txt.
filename:some file type messages with an attachment of the type “some file type”, for example filename:pdf.
OR matches something or something else. OR must be in capitals
quotes matches an exact phrase, for example, "paris in the spring"
parentheses used for grouping words, for example subject:(blues OR jazz).
hyphen not. For example, -bananas, messages which don't contain the word bananas.
in:anywhere messages anywhere in your account, including spam and trash which are excluded by default.
in:inbox
in:trash
in:spam		 messages in inbox, trash, or spam
is:starred messages which are starred
cc:someone
bcc:someone		 Specifies either cc: recipient or bcc: recipient. “someone” can be either one or more names or an email address.

Search options

To use the search options:

  1. Open the Show search options link, which comes shortly after the Search edit box.
  2. You are taken to a page with the title Search Options. In the main content section there are a number of form controls for setting various search options, starting with a From: edit box. After these controls, there's a Search Mail button. Set some options, and then either press ENTER if you're in an edit box, or TAB to the Search Mail button, and press it.
  3. You're taken a page containing a list of the conversations which contain messages which match your search options. The title and level 2 heading of the main content section are Search results for: “search options”, where the search options are expressed in terms of the search operators described in the previous section. Note that the main content section also includes the form controls for setting search options — they are before the level 2 heading.

Archiving

In addition to being able to delete conversations or individual messages, Google Mail allows you to archive conversations from your Inbox. If you archive a conversation, the conversation is removed from your Inbox, but not from the All Mail folder, which contains everything which you haven't deleted.

After you have archived a conversation:

So archiving allows you both to have a small number of conversations in your Inbox, and to still have old messages available.

Settings

The settings for Google Mail are divided into a number of different categories, and each category has its own page. This section gives an overview of these pages, and how to navigate to them. The Labels and Filters pages are described in detail in the Labels and Filters sections of this guide.

The settings categories are:

To move to the Settings:general page, open the Settings link, which comes shortly after the Account Settings level 2 heading.

All the settings pages have the title Settings. The main content section of all the settings pages contains the following:

So, for example, to move to the Settings:Labels page:

  1. First move to General settings page, as described above.
  2. On this page, move to the level 2 heading Settings.
  3. Read through the categories, until you get to the Labels link, and open it.

Labels

Google Mail enables you to create your own labels, apply one or more labels to conversations, and use these labels for finding conversations.

The labels which you've created appear immediately after the level 2 heading Labels in the navigation section. In addition, in any Conversation table, if a conversation has one or more labels, then these appear before the subject of the conversation.

The Settings:Labels page

On the Settings:Label page, you can view, rename, remove, and create labels (how to go to the various settings pages is described in the Settings section above).

The main content section of the page contains the following:

Create a label

On the Settings:Labels page, to create a new label:

  1. Move to the Create a new label edit box.
  2. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, type in a name for the label, and press ENTER. The page refreshes, and the new label appears in the table of labels.

Applying and removing labels

You can apply or remove labels on any Conversation page, or on any Conversation list page.

On a Conversation page, any labels the conversation has appear after the subject of the conversation which is a level 2 heading. To apply or remove labels:

  1. Move to the More Actions combo box, which appears amongst the Action buttons at the beginning and end of the main content section. Since it's the only combo box on the page, you can simply press C to move to it.
  2. Press ENTER to move into Forms mode. The list of actions in the Combo box includes “Apply labels” followed by the existing labels, and also “Remove labels” followed again by the existing labels. Select a label in the appropriate section.
  3. TAB to the Go button, which is the next control, and press it.

On a Conversations list page:

  1. Check the check boxes of the conversations either to which you want to apply a label, or from which you want to remove a label.
  2. Move to the More Actions combo box, which appears amongst the Actions buttons above and below the conversations table. For example, press C to move the the More Actions combo box after the table.
  3. Follow steps 2 and 3 which were given above for a Conversation page.

Searching using labels

You can get a list of the conversations with a particular label by using the label links which are immediately after the level 2 heading Labels. If you open one of these links, you are taken to a page containing a list of the conversations with this label. The title of the page, and the level 2 heading of the main content section is Label:name.

You can search using labels by using the search operator label:, as described in the Search operators section. For example, here's an alternative method for getting a list of conversations with a particular label:

  1. Move to the search edit box, which is the first control on the page.
  2. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, type label:name, where “name” is a label, and then press ENTER.
  3. You are taken to a page containing a list of the conversations with this label. The title of the page and the level 2 heading of the main content sections is Search results for: Label:name.

Filters

In Google Mail, you can create your own filters, which help you to organise your incoming messages. A filter automatically applies one or more actions to incoming messages which match some criteria.

The Settings:Filters page

On the Settings:Filters page, you can view, edit, delete, and create filters (how to get to the various settings pages is described in the Settings section above).

The main content section of the page contains the following:

Creating a filter

Creating a filter involves two stages: specifying the matching criteria, and then specifying one or more actions that will be taken on the messages which match the given criteria.

On the Settings:Filters page:

  1. Press the Create a new Filter button.
  2. The page is refreshed. The main content section remains unchanged, but a group of elements for specifying the filter criteria now appear between the search controls and the navigation section. These elements are:
    • A level 2 heading: Create a filter.
    • 5 edit boxes, and a check box for specifying criteria.
    • Cancel, Test Search, and Next Step buttons.
    Enter the criteria using one or more of these controls.
  3. If you want, you can check which existing messages match this criteria. To do this, press the Test Search button, and the page refreshes. In the main content section there is now:
    • A level 2 heading: Search results for: “criteria” where criteria are your filter criteria defined using the search operators described in the Search operators section.
    • A Conversation table containing the conversations which contain messages which match the criteria.
  4. Once you are happy with the criteria, press the Next Step button.
  5. You're taken to a page where you can specify the action to be taken on the messages that match your criteria. Between the search controls and the navigation section are:
    • A level 2 heading: Create a filter.
    • 5 check boxes for selecting actions. After the Apply the label: check box, there's a Choose label combo box, and after the Forward it to: check box, theres an email address edit box.
    • A check box for also applying the filter to the existing messages which match the criteria. The conversations which contain these messages are shown in the Conversation table which is in the main content section of the page.
    • Cancel, Back, and Create Filter buttons.
    Specify one or more actions using the controls, and press the Create Filter button.
  6. You are returned to the Settings:Filters page, where the new filter is now listed.

Creating a Google Mail account

The process of creating a Google Mail account includes verifying that you're a human being rather than some malicious software, by getting you to listen to some audio, and type in the numbers which are spoken. If you use the Firefox browser, and you haven't got the Quicktime plug-in already installed, then you are prompted to install this plug-in so that you can listen to the audio. So unless you've already got Quicktime installed, or really want to install it, it's best to use Internet Explorer for creating a Google Mail account.

To get to the application form, go to mail.google.com, and open the link “Sign up for Google Mail”, or “Sign up for Gmail”. You're taken to a page with the title Google Accounts. The following sections describe the various sections of the form.

Change Language combo

By default, this will probably be set to English, by which it means US English.

First and last names

When you get to the First name edit box, press ENTER to go into forms mode, type in your first name, then TAB to the next control, which is the Last name edit box. Type in your last name, and then TAB to the next control.

Desired login name

Your login name is both the name you use for signing in to your account, and the part of your email address which appears before the @ sign. Note that in most countries, your email address will have the form login name@gmail.com, but in a small number of countries, including the UK, it will have the form of login name@googlemail.com. Your login name has to be at least 6 characters long. Many login names have already been taken by other people, so part of choosing a login name involves checking the availability of potential names:

  1. Type a name into the Desired Login Name edit box, TAB to the check availability! button, and press it.
  2. The page refreshes, you are taken out of Forms mode, and the focus remains on the check availability! button. Read line by line the text that has now appeared below the button. If the name is available, then it says “name” is available. You can then carry on reading down to choose a password which is described in the next section.
  3. If the name is unavailable, is says “name” is not available, and displays 4 radio boxes, with suggested names which are available. If you're happy with one of these, just press SPACEBAR to set it, and then carry on reading down to choosing a password, which is described in the next main step. If you want to try another name, press SHIFT + E to move back to the edit box, press ENTER to go back into Forms mode, and try again.

Choose a password

Your password must be at least 8 characters long.

  1. At the Choose a password edit box, press ENTER to go back into Forms mode, and type in your password.
  2. TAB past the Password strength link to get to the Re-enter password edit box, and type in your password again.
  3. TAB to the Remember me on this computer check box, and set as desired.
  4. TAB to the Enable Web History check box. The following text appears above the check box: “Web History is a feature that will provide you with a more personalized experience on Google that includes more relevant search results and recommendations.” Set the check box as desired, and then TAB to the next control.

Security question

You have to set up a security question and answer which Google will ask you if you ever forget your password.

  1. When you get to the security question combo box, select one of the options for the question. Note that the last option which is immediately after “What was your first teacher's name” is “Write my own question”. When you select that option, Jaws does not read the option, but an edit box is created below the combo box for you to type in your question, and the focus is moved to the edit box. If you want to move back to the combo box, press SHIFT + TAB.
  2. Once you've selected a question, or written your own, TAB past the learn more link to the Answer edit box, and type in your answer.
  3. TAB to the next control.

Secondary email

If you have another email address, Google can use it if there are problems with your account. When you get to the Secondary email edit box, type in an existing email address if you've got one, and want to, and then TAB past the learn more link to the next control.

Location

The Location combo box, contains a large number of possible locations. It helps to use the first letter of the location to find it more quickly. Once you've found your location, TAB to the next control.

Verification

To check that you're a human being filling in this form, and not some automated process set up to create millions of spurious accounts, Google gets you to either type in the distorted characters in a picture, or to type in the numbers which are spoken in an audio recording which also contains a background of distracting speech. In this recording, a series of single digit numbers are spoken, a clear voice says “once again”, and then the series of numbers is repeated. To perform the audio verification:

  1. When you get to the “type the characters you see or numbers you hear” edit box, TAB to the “listen and type the numbers you hear” link graphic, and open it.
  2. You are taken out of Forms mode, and the focus is placed back in the previous edit box. The audio recording starts. Press ENTER to go into Forms mode, and then type the numbers that you hear. Because Jaws talks over the start of the recording as you're moved back to the edit box, and then go back into Forms mode, you may find it easier to wait till the voice says once again before typing the numbers in.
  3. If you don't get the hang of it the first time, just TAB to the “listen and type the numbers you hear” link graphic, open it, and try again.

Terms of Service

To read the Terms of Service, Press NUMPAD PLUS to come out of forms mode, and then read a line at a time. You'll first pass over some links and text to do with the verification, an introduction to the terms of service, a printable version link which opens in a new window or tab, and then the terms and conditions in an read-only edit box.

Once you've read as much as you want in the edit box, you can use the quick navigation key D to move out of the edit box to the next different element, which is some text. Start reading line by line again, until you get to the “I accept. Create my account button.” button.

Create an account button

Assuming you accept the conditions, press the button. The two cases of the account creation being successful or unsuccessful are described below.

If the account creation is successful, then you're taken to a page with the title Introduction to Gmail, and with the words Introduction to Gmail, and Congratulations! near the top of the page. There's also a “I'm ready - show me my account” link, which can take you to you're Inbox. Note that the page will be in standard view, so you'll have to open the first link on this page to change to the Basic HTML view. There'll be one message in your Inbox, welcoming you to Gmail or Google Mail.

If the account creation is unsuccessful, then you're returned to the same page. Possible problems include:

Note that after making the corrections, you have to repeat the verification stage, and re-enter your password twice, before pressing the create an account button again.