Text Marks the Spot version 1.0.15 is out as of August 24, 2026, and it’s in the NVDA Add-on Store now. Text Marks the Spot is my free NVDA add-on for Windows that moves your cursor to the first real paragraph of a web page the moment the page loads, so you skip the menu, the cookie banner, and the “you might also like” links without pressing a single key. It works with NVDA 2024.1 and newer, it’s been tested with NVDA 2026.2, and everything it does happens on your own computer.
If you got the add-on from the Add-on Store, this is the one to grab. The store copy had been sitting at version 1.0.6 since the middle of June while I kept fixing things on my end, so when your copy updates you’re getting about two months of work all at once instead of just the newest little tweak.
What changed
Nine releases, 1.0.7 through 1.0.15, and here’s what you’ll actually notice.
Pages that used to go quiet on you shouldn’t anymore. Some sites keep rebuilding themselves for a second or two after they load, which shuffles everything around while the add-on is still working, and when that happened the add-on would find the right paragraph, lose track of it, and then say nothing at all. It hangs onto its place a lot better now.
Magazine-style articles land on the story instead of the summary line. You know the layout: the headline, then a one-sentence summary of what you’re about to read, then the author and the date and “6 min read,” and then finally the article. You used to land on that summary line. Now you land on the first real paragraph of the story.
Your cursor stops wandering into the site’s menus and footers. On pages that never tell NVDA where the content begins, the add-on sometimes gave up and read the whole page at you, navigation and copyright notice included. That’s fixed, and those pages come up faster now too.
Sign-in pages, signup forms, and checkout pages put you in the form. You get the page title announced, then your focus lands in the first real field instead of the site’s search box up in the header, and on a checkout you land on the line that says what you’re actually buying rather than the legal fine print sitting next to the order button.
News home pages and link roundups land on the first headline, so you can start pressing H right away instead of arrowing around the middle of the list hunting for the top of it.
Stuck pages can’t freeze NVDA anymore. One news site used to lock things up for ten seconds or more, and every step the add-on takes now runs on a strict clock, so the worst a jammed page costs you is about a second.
The add-on keeps no record of your browsing. It can write a technical log to help me chase down a page that lands in a silly spot, and it writes absolutely nothing unless you deliberately switch that on. No network calls, no AI, no telemetry, same as it’s always been.
How to get it
There are two ways to get it, and the difference between them is worth thirty seconds of your time.
The NVDA Add-on Store is the easy way, and it’s the one I recommend:
- Press NVDA+N to open the NVDA menu, then T for Tools, then A for Add-on Store.
- Press Control+Tab to move between the tabs. If you already have the add-on, go to the “Updatable add-ons” tab. If this is your first time, go to “Available add-ons.”
- Find Text Marks the Spot in the list and install or update it from there.
- Restart NVDA when it asks.
The payoff is that NVDA keeps it current for you from here on, so the next time I ship a fix you get it without ever thinking about it.
If you’d rather have the file yourself, the Text Marks the Spot releases page on GitHub has the .nvda-addon file. Download it, open it, NVDA asks whether you want to install it, and you say yes and restart NVDA when it asks. One thing to know going in: an add-on installed this way doesn’t update itself, so you’d have to come back and get the new one by hand every time.
Store or direct download
Use the Add-on Store unless you have a reason not to. It’s the same add-on either way, and the store handles updates for you. The direct download makes sense if you’re on a machine where the store isn’t an option, if you want a particular older version, or if you just prefer holding the file.
What still trips it up
I’d rather you hear it from me than find it yourself. On some articles the cursor lands on the author’s biography instead of the story. Recipe sites can still drop you on a marketing line or a reader’s review, which is usually one Down arrow away from the recipe. The Verge and TechCrunch home pages lead with a big featured story, so you land on a headline further down the list. Sign-in pages that ask for your email first and save the password for a second screen get no landing at all, which is what those two low beeps mean. And widgets drawn by script, like the fast.com speed test, are still invisible to it.
If you hit a page where it lands in the wrong spot, send me the address and a quick note about what you heard versus what you wanted. Real pages are the only thing that makes this better.
FAQ
What does Text Marks the Spot cost?
Nothing. It’s free, and it’s licensed under the GPL version 2.
Which versions of NVDA does it work with?
NVDA 2024.1 and newer. It’s been tested through NVDA 2026.2, and it runs on both the 32-bit builds up through 2025.3 and the 64-bit builds from 2026.1 on.
Does it work with JAWS or Narrator?
No. It’s an NVDA add-on, so NVDA is what it needs.
Does it send anything over the internet?
No. There are no network calls, no AI, and no telemetry, and it keeps no record of the pages you visit.
What keys does it add?
Three, all in browse mode. Z scans forward to the next real paragraph. Shift+Z jumps you back to where the add-on first put you on this page. NVDA+Z turns the add-on off for the site you’re on, or back on again.
Do I have to set anything up?
No. Install it, restart NVDA, and open a web page.
Open the page. Listen for the beep. You’re there.
Qapla’!