The Meetings Tab

This is the tab used to prepare for and follow along during either the mid-week or weekend meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. If it is early in the week the section of the Meeting Workbook for the current midweek meeting will be displayed. Later in the week it will likely switch to displaying the Watchtower study article.

After double tapping the Meeting tab to open it, I recommend tapping near the top of the screen once with 4 fingers. That will bring VoiceOver focus to the first item on this screen of the app.

At the top left corner of the Meetings tab in JW Library you will find a button that says "Meetings" and then the week being displayed. It should be the current week. If you need to access the material for a different week: double tap that button and swipe through the list of weeks available. The list goes much farther in the future than it does in the past, so anyone who has a part on the meeting can prepare for it far enough in advance. Just double tap the week you need and it will open.

When the Meetings button is showing the correct week: Turn your VoiceOver rotor to containers, then swipe down with one finger. You should hear something like: "December 5-11, heading level 1." That will mean you are at the beginning of the study material for the week in the Meeting Workbook. You can start reading it with Read All, swipe right to go through it by chunks, or switch your Voiceover rotor to headings and then swipe down to find the individual parts on the meeting.

If it is later in the week so that the Watchtower study tab is selected it will say something like: "Study Article 12: May 27, 2024–June 2, 2024."

Swipe right a few times until you hear a link with the name of the current study article. Once you double tap that you will be in the Watchtower study article.

If you hear "Download the meeting publications above," that means you will first have to download the Meeting Workbook or Watchtower you are trying to read.

In that case swipe right. You should hear the title of the publication you need followed by a pause and "Actions available." The current action will be download, so double tap it.

Yes, these directions are correct but confusing. Visually the tab offering the Meeting Workbook is above the statement, "Download the Meeting publications above." However, To VoiceOver the tab offering the Meeting Workbook or Watchtower is below or after that statement.

Switching between MeetingWorkbook and Watchtower

Sometimes you will find that you are in the Watchtower but need the Meeting workbook, or vise versa.

To switch touch the middle of the screen in the Meetings tab.

Use a 3 finger swipe from right to left to get to the Watchtower.

Use a 3 finger swipe from left to right to get to the Life and Ministry meeting workbook.

Voiceover will make its usual scrolling sound to let you know it is working.

Note that the 3 finger scroll gesture will switch to the previous or next article if you are already inside a publication, so switching tabs with it only works on the initial page of that tab.

It is now also possible to switch between Meeting Workbook and Watchtower by Swiping left from the Home tab button. The first swipe will get to the Watchtower tab. A second swipe will find the Meeting Workbook tab. Double tap either to open it.

Meeting Publication Features

All the material you need to access to prepare and participate in the meeting should be available either on the main page of the meetings tab, or available by activating links from that page. Some links will open the material for that part in the main window of the app, so VoiceOver focus will automatically land inside the material you need to read. More often the material will be shown in the Study pane. If using an iPad you will need to figure out what material is shown there and find it on the right side of the screen. When using an iPhone you will know when VoiceOver says either "Hide Study pane," or "SP Back," after you activate a link.

More tips on using the reference links in JW Library can be found here.

If using an iPhone you can use the back button, 2 finger scrub gesture, or Caps-lock+Escape on a keyboard to return to the main material for the meeting.

If using an iPad you will have to try to touch where you think you were reading on the left side of the screen.

In the Meeting Workbook the different parts can be easily found by moving by heading.

In the Watchtower there are headings for the title of the study article, the subheadings in the study, and before the review questions.

You will notice that there are edit boxes where-ever you could give an answer in the meeting Workbook and after the questions in the Watchtower. Unfortunately, they are all labeled the same thing so it is not possible to easily find your answer for the correct question by just switching the VoiceOver rotor to form controls and swiping down through them.

Much worse, if you leave the publication you wrote answers in, the answers will disappear. That obviously isn't happening to all the sighted people using them, so again Voiceover users are blocked from using all the convenient methods sighted people use for studying and quickly referencing answers.

Doesn't it feel like blind people are expected to have superhuman memories or be useless?

Notes are possible to make but dysfunctional. Highlighting is turned off when Voiceover is running. Bookmarks can be made but never deleted. And last but most annoyingly, edits for answers lose them.

Using the website jwblindhelper.org doesn't help with writing or marking answers, but it is easier to quickly reread the question to possibly get your answer back in mind before someone else is called on if the conductor patiently waits for new hands. It also makes it possible to not lose your place when reading scriptures referenced in the material. All reference material including audio described videos will also be present.

In the JW Library app the audio described videos exist, but they can't be played from the meeting workbook. You will have to remember the name of the video you require while you go look it up. It will be in the Library tab.

Once in the Library tab, touch the middle of the screen, then swipe from right to left with 3 fingers to get to the video tab.

Touch the middle of the screen again. Swipe right until you find Audio Descriptions.

Double tap Audio descriptions.

The videos for the weekly meetings will be at the top of the list of categories for audio described videos.

Accessing the Song book

There are at least 2 ways to get to the Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah book, which we usually just call the song book, but the below method is likely to be the quickest.

Double tap the Meetings tab at the bottom of the screen in JW Library.

Turn your Voiceover rotor to containers.

Swipe up with 1 finger. Voiceover will likely say, "Home tab 1 of 5."

Swipe up with 1 finger again. VoiceOver should say, either "The Watchtower..." or "Life and Ministry meeting Workbook...."

No matter which it says you can swipe right to get to Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah.

If VoiceOver said, "Watchtower" you can swipe right once to get to Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah. If it said Meeting Workbook you will have to swipe right a couple times, because you will first find Love People—Make Disciples and Apply Yourself to Reading and Teaching, then Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah.

Double tap Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah. If it has not been downloaded, it should start to download. If it has already been downloaded it will open. At least it usually does. This time I had to kill JW Library from the app switcher and then reopen it.

Once it is downloaded you will be able to double tap the song links in the meeting workbook and Watchtower study to jump directly to the correct song.

If you need to get to a song that is not linked to you can use the above method to open the song book fairly quickly, but it may take some time to find the song.

Note: If the above directions don't work you might be inside a meeting publication within the Meetings tab. Confusingly, the feature for getting to the songbook, as well as the feature for switching between Workbook and Watchtower, only work when the Meetings tab has just been opened and you haven't navigated anywhere within it. If this is a problem you frequently have and get frustrated with, it might be a good idea to add the songbook to Favorites.

Finding a Song

Once the Sing Out Joyfully to Jehovah book is opened

The song book normally opens with the Numbers tab selected. That means that all the songs are listed by number in 1 long list. Keep swiping right with 1 finger to get to a song near the beginning.

You can scroll down with 3 fingers to get closer to a song that you know will be far down in the list, but this method of finding a song number is ridiculously slow. A better way of finding the song you need is to use the Search button at the top of the screen.

I recommend tapping near the top of the screen once with 4 fingers. That should put VoiceOver focus on the Back button.

Now swipe right with 1 finger. First Voiceover will say, "Sing Out Joyfully Heading.." Swipe right a 2nd time to get to the Search button.

Double tap the Search button. VoiceOver should say, "Search field is editing."

If you have a keyboard or braille display connected you can just type in the song number you need and press enter.

Without a hardware keyboard you will have to find the numbers button near the bottom left of the on-screen keyboard. Whether you have to double tap it or just touch it and lift your finger depends on your VoiceOver keyboard setting.

Once you've switched to numbers you can enter a number from the number row at the top of the on-screen keyboard. When finished find and double tap the Search button that is on the right side. where the Return is usually found.

The song you want should now be a few swipes down right after the words, "Match exact phrase." The title will be spoken, followed by the number. Double tap to open it.

Note: you do not want the search result from the alphabetical Index.

2nd note: Never use the search to find a song number lower than 4. Why? The first reason is that it is less efficient than just swiping through the song numbers until you get to it. The 2nd and more important reason is that the search for a number under 4 will find every single song with that verse number in it, which is just about all of them.

It should work to use VoiceOver's Find feature instead of JW Library's when a keyboard or braille display is connected, but sometimes it either doesn't work or is just so slow that it seems like it isn't working.

I admit that I would rarely find the song in time by following this procedure, but then again, I can't sing songs by hearing the words spoken aloud. I require a combination of my lousy memory and my braille display. Obviously, there are people who can do these things successfully and I can only admire their ability and wish I knew how to acquire it myself.

When preparing for meetings it can be helpful to listen to the song. There is an audio button located at the top center of the screen when a song is open.

In other publications the Audio button only provides simple choices because there is usually only one audio version available. In the case of songs there are multiple options and they are not labeled in any way that is helpful to VoiceOver users. The only difference is an inaccessible image.

There will always be an audio version that is only the music. These sound like the version used at meetings.

There often will be a vocal version that has singing. They are often somewhat musically different from the Meetings version.

Under the Video heading will be the file actually used at the meeting to provide music and put the words up on the screen for those who can see them at that distance.

There sometimes are even more audio or video versions. Voiceover focus gets stuck when I try to swipe through them, so that makes selecting the desired one, or even counting them, a bit tricky.

If you want the audio described version of the song, then follow the directions I gave earlier on this page for finding the audio described videos for the current weekly meetings.

Show Media Button

The Show Media button is often in the bar at the top of the screen. At other times it may be found by activating the More button in the bar at the top right of the screen, and then locating the Show Media button within that menu.

Inside the Show Media dialog there will be many buttons to play audio and video media that goes with the currently open publication. There will also be buttons, sometimes labeled but often not, that will open a larger display of included images.

The Show Media dialog is likely very useful for getting all the media up on the screen or played on the sound system during meetings with maximum efficiency.

It can also be great for making sure no media has been overlooked when it is necessary to pre-download everything for later offline use.

I don't know what the History button is doing there in the display of media for the currently open publication. It shows everything recently opened, so it isn't for displaying relevant things.