Navigating Webpages with Chromium Caret Browsing

Caret Browsing is an accessibility feature built into the Chromium web browser and its derivatives that transforms how users interact with webpage content. By placing a moveable text cursor—known as a caret—directly onto the screen, this mode allows users to navigate, highlight, and copy webpage text using only their keyboard arrow keys. This article explains the mechanics behind Caret Browsing, how to activate it, and the specific keyboard commands required to navigate and select text without a mouse.

How the Caret Mechanism Works

Normally, webpages are rendered as static documents where the Up and Down arrow keys simply scroll the viewport. When Caret Browsing is enabled, Chromium's Blink rendering engine injects a blinking text insertion point directly into the webpage's Document Object Model (DOM).

This turns the read-only webpage into an interactive environment similar to a word processor. The browser maps the visual layout of the text and calculates the spatial relationships between characters, words, and lines. When you press an arrow key, the browser identifies the next valid text node or interactive element in that direction and moves the cursor to that exact spot.

Activating Caret Browsing

You can toggle Caret Browsing on or off at any time without digging through complex menus.

Keyboard Shortcut: Press the F7 key on your keyboard. A confirmation dialog box will appear asking if you want to turn on Caret Browsing. Press Enter to confirm.
Browser Settings: Alternatively, navigate to the Chromium Settings menu, select Accessibility from the sidebar, and toggle the switch for Navigate pages with a text cursor.

Once activated, simply click anywhere on a webpage to place the caret, or press the Tab key until the caret appears within the main body of the text.

Navigating Text with Arrow Keys

With the caret placed on the page, standard scrolling is replaced by cursor movement. The viewport will only scroll when the caret reaches the very top or bottom edge of your screen.

Left and Right Arrows: Moves the caret one character to the left or right.
Up and Down Arrows: Moves the caret up or down by one line of text.
Ctrl + Left/Right Arrows (Option + Left/Right on Mac): Jumps the caret forward or backward by one full word at a time.
Home and End Keys: Moves the caret to the very beginning or the very end of the current line of text.

If you move the caret over a hyperlink or a button, Chromium automatically shifts focus to that element. You can then press the Enter key to open the link or activate the button, seamlessly combining text reading with web navigation.

Selecting and Copying Text

Caret Browsing uses standard text-editing shortcuts to highlight content. By holding down the Shift key while moving the caret, you anchor the starting point of the cursor and highlight everything the caret passes over.

Select by Character: Hold Shift and press the Left or Right arrow keys to highlight individual letters.
Select by Word: Hold Ctrl + Shift (Option + Shift on Mac) and press the Left or Right arrow keys to highlight whole words rapidly.
Select by Line: Hold Shift and press the Up or Down arrow keys to highlight entire lines or paragraphs of text.
Select to the Edge of a Line: Hold Shift and press Home or End to highlight everything from the caret's current position to the beginning or end of the line.

Once your desired text is highlighted, press Ctrl + C (Cmd + C on Mac) to copy the selection to your system clipboard. Pressing any arrow key without holding Shift will immediately collapse the selection and allow you to continue navigating normally. To exit Caret Browsing mode and return the arrow keys to their default scrolling behavior, simply press F7 again.