Michel Coornaert
Strasbourg, France

VoiceOver 10.9

Using Dashboard with VoiceOver Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks


Dashboard is an application included in MacOS 10.9 Mavericks containing certain mini-applications called "widgets". Some widgets such as "Calculator", "Translation", "Unit Converter" and "Weather" are already pre-installed. Other widgets may be added. One encounters accessibility issues with some widgets.


  • Important: for the instructions below, it is assumed that VoiceOver is on and that Quick Nav is off.
    To toggle VoiceOver on or off, press Cmd + F5.
    When VoiceOver is on, press simultaneously the Right and Left arrows to toggle Quick Nav on or off.

  • To open or close Dashboard:
    Press F12 (on Macbook Fn + F12).

  • To open a widget:
    Press Ctrl + Opt + F2 (on Macbook Fn + Ctrl + Opt + F2) twice to access the Dashboard menu, then
    Select the widget by moving with the arrows, then
    Press Ctrl + Opt + Spacebar.

  • To close a widget:
    Press Ctrl + Opt + Cmd + Escape (on Macbook Fn + Ctrl + Opt + Cmd + Escape), then
    Press the Return key.

  • One can suppress widgets in the Finder application (see Using Finder). The widgets are located in the Widgets folder of the main Library folder.

  • Additional widgets may be downloaded from Apple Dashboard's Download page.

  • VoiceOver Commands



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  • Last Update: October 20, 2014