Accessibility

Etherpad aims to be usable by everyone, including people who rely on a keyboard, a screen reader, or other assistive technology. The editor follows common conventions so that selecting, formatting, and navigating text works the way you would expect in other applications, and the toolbar can be reached and operated without a mouse.

If you find a feature that is not accessible, please let us know by opening an issue so it can be improved.

Keyboard shortcuts

The following shortcuts are built into the editor. On macOS use the Command (Cmd) key wherever Ctrl is listed.

TIP

Most shortcuts can be individually enabled or disabled through the padShortcutEnabled settings, so a deployment may have customised which of these are active.

Editor

Action	Shortcut
Bold	Ctrl + B
Italic	Ctrl + I
Underline	Ctrl + U
Strikethrough	Ctrl + 5
Ordered (numbered) list	Ctrl + Shift + N or Ctrl + Shift + 1
Unordered (bulleted) list	Ctrl + Shift + L
Indent line or selection	Tab
Outdent line or selection	Shift + Tab
Undo	Ctrl + Z
Redo	Ctrl + Y or Ctrl + Shift + Z
Save a named revision	Ctrl + S
Duplicate the current line(s)	Ctrl + Shift + D
Delete the current line(s)	Ctrl + Shift + K
Clear authorship colors on the pad or selection	Ctrl + Shift + C
Show the authors of the current line	Ctrl + Shift + 2
Focus the toolbar (see below)	Alt + F9
Focus the chat input	Alt + C

Text selection, cut (Ctrl + X), copy (Ctrl + C), paste (Ctrl + V), and the arrow keys behave as they do in any standard text editor.

Timeslider

The timeslider (revision history) provides its own shortcuts:

Action	Shortcut
Play / pause history playback	Space
Step back one revision	Left Arrow
Step forward one revision	Right Arrow
Jump back to the previous starred revision	Shift + Left Arrow
Jump forward to the next starred revision	Shift + Right Arrow

Toolbar navigation

The toolbar holds the formatting controls (bold, italic, lists, and so on) and can be reached and operated entirely from the keyboard:

• Press Alt + F9 from the editor to move focus to the first button in the toolbar.
• Use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys to move between buttons. Tab also moves to the next focusable control.
• Press Enter to activate the focused button.
• Press Alt + F9 again, or Escape, to return focus to the pad.

Pressing Escape while a toolbar dropdown (such as the settings or color picker) is open closes that dropdown first.

Screen readers

Etherpad provides as much screen reader support as possible. Support quality varies between platforms and browsers, so the following combinations are recommended:

• On Windows, Firefox with NVDA currently gives the best experience.

To reduce verbose feedback while typing collaboratively in NVDA, open the keyboard settings (NVDA + Ctrl + K) and turn off Speak typed characters and Speak typed words.

Support in other screen readers and browsers (for example Orca on Linux, or Chrome) is more limited. Contributions to improve coverage on these platforms are very welcome.