[Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX

Fri Nov 6 14:28:50 UTC 2009

I could not agree with this more.  My experience has been quite interesting
as I lost my sight six years ago.  Now I am pursuing a degree in Computer
Science and have not found one method which suits me well enough.  One
method always has its drawbacks and I have found that I will require more
options if I am to succeed.  

Teaching a man to fish is simple compared to teaching a man to do Math with
LaTeX; when we put it in such simple  terms.  There is only one way to fish
and that is with a fishing line.  If you say, "Teach a man to catch," then
you are providing a lifetime of experiences that is filled with many
methodologies and processes for success.      LaTeX is just one tool in the
Tackel box, to continue with the fishing analogy.  The tackle box must not
only contain the LaTeX methodology but must also contain other tools.  A
fisherman cannot catch a fish with one lure   One lure will get him a
particular type of fish in a specified location at a specified time.  

While my argument is extremely simplistic, it aims to illustrate that the
one-for-all approach is not always best.    

Regards,
Jose Tamayo 

i-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 8:07 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics';
andrew.stacey at math.ntnu.no
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX

The assumption that everyone who needs to consume math, also needs to
produce it is not realistic, I fear.  Furthermore, there are different
learning styles and preferences for the assimilation of information, and
assuming that latex works for someone because it works for you or others is
not fair to that individual.  I also believe that this preference or choice
of format is independent of technical ability or intelligence.

Personally I find latex distracting from the actual mathematics at hand, and
yet I don't consider myself to be unintelligent, nor technically inept,
considering I'm pursuing a PhD in exactly computer science.

I think there's different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes,
and it's almost a throw back to the old medical model of the 1980's to only
present one possible solution, or treatment, to the problem.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of P. R. Stanley
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 6:22 AM
To: andrew.stacey at math.ntnu.no; Blind Math list for those interested in
mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX

Andrew
you do not need to change anything. LaTeX source is just fine.
I should expend my efforts on educating the readers on the benefits 
of LaTeX rather than trying to make it less complicated with the 
so-called solutions that are advertised on these lists.
Blind people, most blind people, are smart enough to cope with a bit 
of complexity. ( smile)
What was the famous quote from that economist, give a man a fish or 
teach him to fish? Teach a blind person to read and use LaTeX and 
you've set him up with a powerful tool for years to come.
Paul

>My second barrage of questions concerns the general issue of making
>mathematical papers accessible.  I write my papers in LaTeX (naturally) and
>have no intention of changing that.  I'm quite happy to publish it in
>different forms, and I'm quite happy with hacking style files and messing
>around with TeX primitives.  So what's my best strategy for making my
>mathematics accessible?
>
>Reading back in your archives, there seem to be two formats that would be
>reasonable: tagged PDF and XHTML+MathML.  I've tried using TeX4ht to
convert
>to MathML a couple of times and it didn't seem too hard, though I can't say
>that I thought that the output looked very pretty!  I asked this in my
barrage
>of n-lab questions, but let me ask it again: if I add a stylesheet to make
it
>look nice, does that affect the accessibility?
>
> >From reading your archives, then getting pdfTeX to output tagged PDF is
>a little way off as yet.  I'm quite happy doing a little pre-processing and
>post-processing (so long as it can be automated) so is there any way that
>I could modify the PDF to be tagged?  I'm afraid I know very little about
what
>tagged PDF is so can only speculate, but I'm thinking of something along
the
>lines of the DVI specials: redefine the mathematics environments to insert
>specials which a later program converts to tags.  I'll wait to hear if
that's
>even feasible before speculating even further.
>
>When writing papers, are there any tidbits of advice which would make the
>resulting paper easier to follow?
>
>I'd imagine that my webpages score low on accessibility.  For a start, the
>layout is controlled by tables which, I dimly recall, are a Bad Thing.  Are
>there any websites that explain how to design a website that's accessible?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Andrew Stacey
>
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