[Blindmath] Mathematical document accessibility

Thu Mar 19 17:27:35 UTC 2009

Hi Michael,

I quite agree with you on the problem of reading the entire expression in MathML. It would indeed be a lot easier if we could jump to say the numerator by pressing N, denominator by pressing D, and so forth.

Wonder which editor do you use for LaTeX?

Regards

"The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

--- On Tue, 3/17/09, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com> wrote:

> From: Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Mathematical document accessibility
> To: r_akshi_tgk at yahoo.com, "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics" <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 2:04 AM
> I think you have hit a very good
> point, the difference between reading the source of a
> document and using viewer software. A well designed viewer
> should be better than viewing/reading the source for any
> format, however for LaTeX there is no really good accessible
> viewer (may be emacspeak helps, I haven't tried it for
> LaTeX). For mathml you have an accessible viewer in the form
> of mathplayer (I believe the accessibility of that could be
> improved, I will discuss this point later). If for both you
> had to read the source then LaTeX would certainly be
> preferable.
> 
> My problems with mathplayer (these can be applied more
> generally to what I feel a good accessible viewer should
> provide) are to do with the amount of navigation users have
> of the equation. Having everything spelt out and just
> revealed as one long string makes it hard to work with. What
> happens if I have a long equation and want to jump to say
> the denominator of a fraction (as that might be the
> important part for the working at that time) currently I
> have to scroll through loads of text, ideally I could do
> with a hotkey to jump to particular elements of an equation
> (like most screen readers do for things like headings,
> tables, etc in web pages). In saying this I don't mean to do
> down the work done on mathplayer, I know that to enable all
> I would like to see requires work from the screen reader
> manufacturers, and this is why we should remind the
> developers of our favourite screen reader that math support
> is important to us.
> 
> I know Neil has mentioned that PDF could support tagging of
> maths and when this is properly supported then may be you
> will be as happy reading output from LaTeX as you are when
> viewing mathml with mathplayer. BTW: you can always convert
> LaTeX to mathml then view that with mathplayer, this is
> where a good editor comes in, you can configure more
> advanced ones to launch scripts/tools on the press of a key
> so you could get the LaTeX translated to mathml and then
> shown in internet explorer all automatically at the press of
> a key. As I remember for windows users edsharp supports
> LaTeX editing and probably fits the requirements of a good
> editor for LaTeX.
> 
> Michael Whapples
> On 16/03/09 17:34, Roopakshi Pathania wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > MathML may be hard from the coding aspect, but it is
> easier to read at least for a beginner.
> > Reading LaTeX using a simple editor like NotePad
> causes the focus to shift from understanding Mathematics to
> understanding the structure of an expression.
> > That is why you like Emacs, because it reads LaTeX in
> a completely different way. I can't say this from my
> personal experience as I'm a windows user, but because I
> have gone through T. V. Raman's (the creater of Emacspeak)
> thesis.
> > 
> > I wish I was that I was a Linux user only to use
> Emacspeak.
> > But, while I remain a windows user, I respect what
> MathML has done, not only for me, but for many other blind
> users who have yet to learn Mathematics.
> > 
> > Regards
> > --- On Sun, 3/15/09, Jason White<jason at jasonjgw.net> 
> wrote:
> > 
> >    
> >> From: Jason White<jason at jasonjgw.net>
> >> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Mathematical document
> accessibility
> >> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> >> Date: Sunday, March 15, 2009, 3:14 PM
> >> Michael Whapples<mwhapples at aim.com> 
> wrote:
> >>      
> >>> * MathML is very verbose, you would never want
> to work
> >>>        
> >> with the actual
> >>      
> >>> code itself when creating or reading a
> document. LaTeX
> >>>        
> >> is much better in
> >>      
> >>> that respect.
> >>>        
> >> [other excellent points omitted for brevity]
> >> 
> >> This is a serious disadvantage. If I run itex2mml
> (a TeX to
> >> MathML converter)
> >> and type in the TeX code for the quadratic
> formula, I get:
> >> $x= \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$
> >> <math xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML'
> >>
> display='inline'><mi>x</mi><mo>=</mo><mfrac><mrow><mo
> >> lspace="verythinmathspace"
> >>
> rspace="0em">−</mo><mi>b</mi><mo>±</mo><msqrt><mrow><msup><mi>b</mi>
> >> <mn>2
> >>
> </mn></msup><mo>−</mo><mn>4
> >>
> </mn><mi>ac</mi></mrow></msqrt></mrow><mrow><mn>2
> >>
> </mn><mi>a</mi></mrow></mfrac></math>
> >> 
> >> Now compare the TeX version on the first line with
> the
> >> MathML version starting
> >> on the second line, and consider which you would
> prefer to
> >> read or edit.
> >> 
> >> To generate MathML, you either have to convert it
> from
> >> another format such as
> >> TeX, or you are forced to use a wysiwyg editor.
> Since the
> >> second option raises
> >> accessibility problems of its own so far as
> mathematics is
> >> concerned, this
> >> leaves the first option, which involves writing
> in
> >> TeX/LaTeX anyway, so we're
> >> back where we started.
> >> 
> >> I should add that I don't favour wysiwyg editors.
> After
> >> having learned Emacs
> >> and Vi, it becomes obvious how painfully
> inefficient the
> >> editors provided by
> >> typical word processors are, even the ones with
> good
> >> keyboard support such as
> >> WordPerfect 5.1 and 6.0, which is what I was using
> before
> >> moving full-time to
> >> Linux.
> >> 
> >> 
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> >>      
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 