Uku: Accessibility
Last updated: October 24, 2026
Uku should work for everyone, whether you read with a mouse, only the keyboard, a screen reader, or need more contrast, larger text or less motion. This page lists what Uku does for that on Windows, macOS and Linux, and where to find the settings.
Shortcuts are written for Windows and Linux; on a Mac, use ⌘ for Ctrl and ⌥ for Alt.
See it the way you need
- Themes. The Aa button in the toolbar, or Settings ▸ Appearance: System (the default) follows your system’s light or dark setting, or choose Light, Sepia (warm paper for long reading), Dark or Night (near black).
- High contrast. Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ High contrast: black surfaces, white text, a yellow accent and a cyan focus ring, with alerts and messages outlined instead of tinted. On System, Uku switches to it by itself when your system’s high contrast is on.
- Readable colors. Text has a contrast of at least 4.5:1 with its background, and the keyboard focus ring and borders at least 3:1, in every theme and with every color scheme, including code and its colors. Uku’s automated tests check this with every build.
- Bigger text. Ctrl+= and Ctrl+- make the document’s text larger or smaller, from 70 % to 200 % (Ctrl+0 goes back to 100 %); the page reflows, nothing is cut off. Also in Aa ▸ Text size. The rest of the window follows your system’s display scaling.
- Comfortable reading. Aa ▸ Font (sans, serif or mono) and Line width (narrow, medium, wide or the full window). Focus mode (F11) leaves only the page.
Not just color
Nothing in a document is told only by color:
- Alerts (Note, Tip, Important, Warning, Caution) have an icon and their name, not only a tint.
- Links are underlined as well as colored. A link to a file that doesn’t exist is shown in red, and clicking it also says Can’t find ….
- Done tasks are struck through as well as muted, and their box is ticked.
- Find in the document marks the current match with an outline as well as a stronger color, and says 3 of 12.
Less motion
Uku has little motion to begin with: a few short fades and nothing that moves while you read. Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Motion: System (the default) follows your system: Windows’ Animation effects, macOS’s Reduce motion, GNOME’s animations. Reduced turns all fades and sliding off; Full keeps them. The page never animates when a document changes on disk.
Keyboard
Everything in Uku works without a mouse.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| All shortcuts | F1 |
| Move between the toolbar, the sidebar and the page | F6 / Shift+F6 |
| Next / previous link (or button, task box) on the page | Tab / Shift+Tab, then Enter to follow a link |
| Next / previous heading | Alt+↓ / Alt+↑ |
| Scroll the page | Space / Shift+Space, Page Up / Page Down, arrows, Home / End |
| Find in the document | Ctrl+F, then Enter / Shift+Enter |
| Search the files | Ctrl+Shift+F |
| Back / forward | Alt+← / Alt+→ (Mac: ⌘[ / ⌘]) |
| Open a file / a folder | Ctrl+O / Ctrl+Shift+O |
| Show or hide the sidebar | Ctrl+Shift+L |
| Edit / read | Ctrl+E |
| Text size larger / smaller / 100 % | Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0 |
| Settings | Ctrl+, |
| Focus mode | F11 |
In the sidebar, the arrow keys move through files and folders, F2 renames, Delete deletes and the context-menu key (or Shift+F10) opens an item’s menu. Opening files and folders and reordering the folders of a workspace (Move up / Move down) don’t need a mouse; moving a file into another folder is still done by dragging it. Nothing in Uku is timed. The keyboard focus is always visible: on a link, a ring goes around the link’s words.
Screen readers
Uku tells screen readers how a document is built, not just its text:
- Headings have their level, so you can jump between them (also with Alt+↓ / Alt+↑ in Uku).
- Lists are lists, with each item’s position (2 of 5); bullets aren’t read out. Task boxes are named by their task.
- Alerts, quotes, code blocks (Code, python), tables and footnotes are named, so you know where you are.
- Links are reached with Tab and read as links, with their address; pictures are read by their description.
- The page is a document named by the document’s title; the sidebar is navigation, the search and find are search.
Every button, field and menu item has a name, in all of Uku’s languages. Things that happen without moving the focus are read out: Saved, Copied, the number of matches while you type in find, a message such as The file changed on disk while you were editing it, and the new text size.
Uku is built for Narrator and NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on the Mac, but hasn’t yet been tested end to end with each of them, and screen reader support on Linux depends on your desktop. If anything in Uku doesn’t work with your screen reader, please tell me (below): it will be treated as a bug.
Languages
Uku is available in English, German, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar, switchable at any time in Settings ▸ General without restarting.
Tell me what doesn’t work
If something in Uku is hard or impossible to use for you, write to garipov.dinar@gmail.com. Please mention your operating system and its version, and the assistive technology or setting you use.