Using the service offline
A waiting room with no signal, a hospital basement, a journey, a used-up data allowance: Words Within Reach must speak when there is no connection left. Here is what works then, what does not, and how to check it yourself.
What is enough: one visit
The first time you open the service with a network connection, your browser keeps its own copy of the pages, the stylesheet, the code, the symbols of the core vocabulary and the recorded sounds that are available. After that, all of it opens with no connection. There is nothing to install, no account, and nothing to set up.
The weight kept on the device for the pictures and the sounds is about 2.7 MB, the order of magnitude of one photograph from a phone.
What works without a connection
- The boards already opened once, and those of the core vocabulary.
- Building the sentence, reading it back, correcting it.
- The voice, since it is the device’s own and not that of a remote service.
- Your boards and the words you have added: they never needed the network.
- Printing, if a printer can be reached.
- Exporting your backup file.
What does not work without a connection
- A page never opened on this device. It could not be kept: the service then shows its fallback page and brings you back to what is available.
- A symbol never displayed, if it is not part of the core vocabulary. Opening the boards you will need once, with a network connection, is enough to take them with you.
- The links to the association’s website and to the sources cited, which live elsewhere.
The advice that holds before a journey: before you leave, open the boards you will need once, and print the one that matters most. Paper is the only offline that depends on nothing.
Putting the service on the home screen
It is not required, but it saves looking for an address at the wrong moment. The steps depend on the device, and all they do is add a shortcut to the same page: no additional software is installed.
- On iPhone and iPad, with Safari: the share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
- On Android, with Chrome: the browser menu, then “Add to Home screen” or “Install app”.
- On a computer, with Chrome or Edge: the install icon in the address bar, when the browser offers it.
Check, rather than take our word for it
- Open the service and the boards you are interested in, with a network connection.
- Cut off the network, or switch on aeroplane mode.
- Reload the page, or close and reopen the service.
Everything shown then is yours, on your device. You can also open your browser’s developer tools, Network tab: the full list of what the site requests is visible there, and everything comes from odersa.org.
Updates
When a new version exists, it installs in the background and waits its turn: it never takes over while you are using the tool, because mixing two versions in the same screen produces behaviour nobody can make sense of. It becomes active the next time the service is opened with no tab already running. Your boards are never touched.
What can erase your boards
The browser is master in its own house: clearing browsing data, resetting the device, or simply working in private browsing makes what was kept disappear. We hold no copy of it, so we can restore nothing. Exporting a file is the only backup that survives: keep it with your important documents, and export again after every session in which you have added words.
On a shared device, a ward computer or a school computer, your boards stay in that browser after you leave. Export your file, then clear the site data if you do not want to leave anything behind.