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Accessibility in Premiere Pro

Learn how accessible Premiere Pro is, in visual, auditory, and mobility categories. Also learn how you can use Premiere Pro to create videos that are usable by people with disabilities.

Accessibility refers to making products usable for people with visual, auditory, motor, and other disabilities.

Examples of accessibility features for software products include screen reader support, text equivalents for graphics, keyboard shortcuts, change of display colors to high contrast, and so on.

Premiere Pro provides some tools that make it accessible to use and tools that help you create accessible content.

For Premiere Pro video editors who need accessibility features, the application offers some screen magnifier support, keyboard navigation, and operating system accessibility support (with some exceptions).

For more information on the specific accessibility features that Premiere Pro supports, see Accessibility conformance reports for Adobe solutions.

Premiere Pro provides tools that help video editors create accessible videos. For example, while working with Premiere Pro, you can create videos that adhere to the following accessibility guidelines:

  • Videos that do not contain any content that move, blink, flash, scroll, or auto-update.
  • Videos that include text with sufficient contrast.
  • Videos that include captions. For more information, see Working with captions.
  • Videos that include audio description.

Support for screen readers and screen magnifiers

A screen reader recites text that appears on the computer screen. It also reads non-textual information, such as button labels or image descriptions in the application, provided in accessibility tags or attributes. 

Premiere offers limited support for assistive technologies (which includes screen readers and screen magnifiers). For more information, see Accessibility conformance reports for Adobe solutions.

Support for operating system accessibility features

Premiere Pro supports accessibility features present in Mac. For example, on Mac you set the visual preferences in the Universal Access Preferences dialog box (Apple > System Preferences). Your settings are reflected in the Premiere Pro workspace.

Note:

Premiere Pro does not provide full support for Windows High Contrast Mode. Except title bars and menus, the product does not respond to Windows High Contrast Mode.

You can use the keyboard to navigate panels and dialog boxes.

  1. In the Premiere Pro workspace, press Ctrl+Shift+. (period) (Windows), or Control+Shift+. (period) (Mac) to activate panels in rotation in a clockwise way. 

    To activate panels in rotation anticlockwise, press Ctrl+Shift+, (comma) (Windows), or Control+Shift+, (comma) (Mac).

    A blue line around the panel indicates that focus is on that panel. 

    Once focus is on a panel, you can use a few more shortcuts to use the panel.

    For example if focus is on the Timeline panel, you can do the following tasks using keyboard shortcuts:

    • Press the Spacebar to start/stop playback. 
    • Use the left and right arrows to steps through frame by frame.

    To find a list of all available shortcuts for each window, open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box (Win: Ctrl + Alt + K, Mac: Cmd+Opt+K). These keyboard shortcuts are shortcuts that work only when the parent panel has focus.

  2. If the panel you want to work in is not open, use the keyboard shortcuts in the Window menu to display the appropriate panel.

  3. If the panel is open but not expanded, press the ~ (tilde key) shortcut to expand the panel.

Handy keyboard shortcuts

Here are some handy keyboard shortcuts for commonly used Premiere Pro windows:

  • Project window: Shift-1
  • Effect Controls window: Shift-5
  • Audio Clip Mixer: Shift-6
  • Effects window: Shift-7
  • Media Browser: Shift-8

For a list of keyboard shortcuts, see Premiere Pro default keyboard shortcuts.

  1. To move through the options in a dialog box, press the Tab key.

  2. Use the arrow keys to move through choices for an option.

  3. If the dialog box has a Category list (such as the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog), press Control+Tab (Windows) to shift focus to the category list. Then use the arrow keys to move up or down the list.

  4. Press Enter to exit the dialog box.

You can access and operate most panels and dialog boxes using a keyboard. However, there are a few exceptions:

  • You cannot navigate the tabs in the New Project dialog box. 
  • You cannot traverse through the tree control in the New Sequence dialog box.
  • You cannot access the controls in the Lumetri Color panel or select an effect in the Effects panel using a keyboard alone.
  • The Effects and Project panels are not reachable using a keyboard.
  • Many timeline and edit operations, such as drawing with the pen tool and layering clips, require the use of a mouse.

Ability to set visual preferences

Under the Appearance preferences, you use the toggle to switch between a high-contrast mode for easier visibility and accessibility or a low-contrast mode to focus on your content. 

BeforeUI
AfterUI

The new toggle between high and low contrast lets you customize your options. 

With this design system in place, you’ll see more visual continuity across Adobe applications, better legibility, and easier UI interactions.

The Spectrum design system unifies Adobe’s app design behind principles that make it inclusive, scalable, and focused. 

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