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.TH orca 1 "19 February 2026" "GNOME"
.SH NAME
orca \- a scriptable screen reader
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B orca
.RI [ option... ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B orca
is a screen reader for people with visual impairments,
it provides alternative access to the desktop by using speech synthesis and braille.
.P
.B orca
works with applications and toolkits that support
the Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI), which
is the primary assistive technology infrastructure for Linux. Applications
and toolkits supporting the AT-SPI include the GNOME GTK toolkit,
the Java platform's Swing toolkit, LibreOffice, Gecko, WebKitGTK, and Qt.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help
Display help message and exit.
.TP
.B \-v, \-\-version
Print version information and exit.
.TP
.B \-r, \-\-replace
Replace a currently running
.B orca
process. By default, if
.B orca
detects an existing
.B orca
process for the same session, it will not start a new
.B orca
process. This option will kill and clean up after any existing
.B orca
process and then start a new
.B orca
in its place.
.TP
.B \-s, \-\-setup
Set up user preferences using the GUI. If
.B orca
is already running, the preferences dialog will be shown
in the running instance.
.TP
.B \-l, \-\-list\-apps
Print the known running applications. This
is used primarily for debugging purposes to see if
.B orca
can talk to the accessibility infrastructure. Note that if
.B orca
is already running, this will not kill the other
.B orca
process. It will just list the currently running applications,
and you will see
.B orca
listed twice: once for the existing
.B orca
and once for this instance.
.TP
.BI "\-p, \-\-profile " NAME
Load the specified user profile.
.TP
.BI "\-i, \-\-import\-dir " DIR
Import settings from
.I DIR
into dconf, overwriting current settings.
This is primarily intended for migration purposes.
.TP
.BI "\-\-speech\-system " NAME
Use the specified speech system.
.TP
.B \-\-debug
Enable debug output for
.B orca
and send all debug output to a file with a name of the
form 'debug\-YYYY\-MM\-DD\-HH:MM:SS.out' in the current directory.
The YYYY\-MM\-DD\-HH:MM:SS portion will be replaced with the current
date and time.
.TP
.BI "\-\-debug\-file " FILE
Enable debug output for
.B orca
and send all debug output to the given
.IR FILE .

.SH KEYBOARD SETTINGS
Orca provides two keyboard modes, Desktop and Laptop keyboard layout.
.B Orca
uses the desktop's default keyboard shortcuts to navigate and interact with
applications. Use learn mode to discover all available commands.
.P
The following key bindings use the
.B Orca_Modifier
key, which is
.B Insert
in desktop keyboard layout and
.B Caps_Lock
in laptop keyboard layout.
.TP
.B Orca_Modifier+H
Enter learn mode. Press Escape to exit.
.TP
.B Orca_Modifier+Space
Open the preferences dialog.
.TP
.B Orca_Modifier+Ctrl+Space
Open the preferences dialog for the current application.

.SH FILES
.TP
.I ~/.local/share/orca/
User preferences directory.
.TP
.I ~/.local/share/orca/orca\-customizations.py
User customizations configuration file.
.TP
.I ~/.local/share/orca/orca\-scripts/
User scripts directory.


.SH AUTHOR
.B Orca
originated as a community effort led by the Sun Microsystems Inc.
Accessibility Program Office and with contributions from many community members.
.SH SEE ALSO
.IP \(bu 2
.B Orca repository and issue tracker
.UR https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca
<https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca>
.UE