[Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX

Fri Nov 13 00:22:40 UTC 2009

Hello,
Firstly some comments on dots plus. When I have seen samples of it I 
also felt it was quite good (not sure whether I consider it better than 
accurate Braille or not, but it does have the ease of learning for those 
not so familiar with Braille and also the problems with getting accurate 
Braille). Dots plus is more accurate than Braille translation due to it 
being a font substitution and so simple to apply. The disadvantages I 
feel dots plus has is that it can't be read on a Braille display, its 
not a format for writing in (by this I mean you can't write it with a 
perkins Brailler, etc, you need to produce the document on the computer 
usually with mathtype, look at the LaTeX input mode for it) and the 
tiger printer is the only sensible option for producing a paper copy. A 
quick note: as I understand it, dots plus was created before the tiger 
printer, the tiger printer was an attempt to make it possible to produce 
dots plus in a more cost effective way (before the tiger printer I think 
the option was swell paper, very expensive). May be John or someone with 
a connection to this could confirm that.

Even if dots plus is part of the solution, its not the full solution 
(you still have the creation issue, particularly for just making quick, 
rough notes).

I personally feel that ideally Braille would be the solution, it can be 
viewed on a Braille display, written on a perkins Brailler, read from 
paper, etc. It does have problems, my main problem is getting accurate 
Braille in a reasonable timescale. As for Braille codes, lots say that 
nemeth is very good, advantage would be the possibility of reading all 
the books produced for the US. There are many other Braille codes, 
couldn't really say what is meant to be great or not about most of them. 
One I will pick out, mainly because its been mentioned, is LAMBDA. As I 
understand it LAMBDA was designed to be an accessible editing 
environment for maths, Braille output being one. I think they came up 
with their own Braille code to fit with the way the software works, so 
may be its more accurate but I doubt there are many books already 
produced in it.

Speech access to maths I feel is not a great way of doing it, I just 
feel it doesn't allow me the freedom to explore the equations as I 
wouldlike to although some seem to manage very well. The big advantage 
is that any mathematician should be able to check the accuracy of the 
output.

I will mention LaTeX, I would say fine for an authoring tool, but 
shouldn't really be a reading format. I am saying that statement to mean 
what might be ideally done, if you can get another "reading format" done 
accurately then the alternative may be more natural and easier to access 
than LaTeX (I mean by easier, you don't have to deal with the extra 
LaTeX commands possibly distracting, cluttering things up, dealing with 
any macros defined by the author, etc). For authoring documents it is 
very good, but I would say make sure that for those learning it there 
are good documents. It may take time to get into the way of thinking and 
may be for some it just won't be the way to work. Although I now don't 
recommend LaTeX for reading, don't disregard it for producing the 
documents, there are tools like tex4ht which can convert LaTeX to mathml 
in a webpage and mathplayer can be used to speak the equation or 
something like liblouisxml can be used for producing Braille.

It is likely you will need to consider a few of these as currently I 
feel no single solution can do the task accurately.

Michael Whapples
On 12/11/09 21:41, qubit wrote:
> Hi Birkir and all --
> You have some good alternatives; here are some thoughts:
> I looked at a sample of DotsPlus myself some months ago and was very
> impressed -- it is not only easier to read than Nemeth, it also reflected
> the spatial layout of the print equations, and therefore made the tactile
> images understandable by sighted instructors.  But the only drawback is that
> it would be impossible to capture this representation on a traditional
> braille display, which you probably know since you say Icelanders use
> braille displays extensively.  Also, the images in DotsPlus currently only
> print on a ViewPlus embosser -- which I'm sure is part of ViewpPlus'
> strategy, but it would mean that if you don't own a Tiger you'd have to get
> one in order to use DotsPlus.  (I personally would love to see DotsPlus
> succeed in spite of this -- it is so much easier to read than Nemeth,
> especially for those of us who didn't learn Nemeth at a young age). But I
> also would put in a petition for ViewPlus to knock down the price of a Tiger
> to about 25% of it's current price...*smile* (I know, fat chance...but
> there's nothing wrong with asking...)
>
> I haven't tried the other solutions so can't comment on them, although latex
> is a good language to learn, because of its popularity.
>
> So Birkir, does this mean you have moved back to Iceland?
> Excuse the personal question -- I had a math prof in grad school from
> Iceland, who taught a class on complex analysis.  He was very supportive of
> my taking the class (I was a math major, with usable sight then), and he
> always verbalized what he wrote on the board so I could follow him.
> However, I don't know if it was his accent or my hearing, but it sounded
> like he pronounced c, g and z all as "she".  So I gave up that and hired
> someone to take notes and record class for me so I could listen and read the
> notes later.
>
> Well, happy computing.  I think it would be interesting if you posted your
> experience and decisions with respect to braille to this list.  I hope you
> find a good solution.
> --le
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Birkir Gunnarsson"<birkir.gunnarsson at gmail.com>
> To:<andrew.stacey at math.ntnu.no>; "'Blind Math list for those interested in
> mathematics'"<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX
>
>
> Andrew (and all).
>
> What would you recommend to be an easy (or reasonably easy) beginner's guide
> to Tex and LaTeX, LaTeX is what I am thinking specifically.
> I amresonsible for choosing technology and teaching to get blind and VI high
> school students and, hopefully, university students in my native country of
> Iceland into math/science. Thre has been a close to 100% drop out or
> switching rate away from science (of course we have very few students,
> between may be 1 and 3 per year, so the population sample is tiny). Part of
> this problem,I am convinced, is math text books. We sortof made our own
> standard although we have never formally dfined it and the text and all
> examples have to be more or less typed by hand and thus students tend to get
> the material late ish with lotsof pressure to perform. Also there has been
> no way for them to turn in clear and legible math home works, because they
> use a similar system or invent their own rather than using an editr or
> technology to create math documents they can turn in and discuss.
> I managed my way through a rather math intensive fiancé program at
> university this way until last year I finally adapted LaTeX for some of mmy
> homework and it really made a huge difference.
> Now it is up to me to figure out how to improve the situation.
> As I see it there are three ways. To use "the good old" systems, may be
> Nemith, lambds or GCSE (I believe tyat is what the UK math system is
> called), to use pure LaTeX both for encoding books and teaching it to
> students so they can compile or translate their homework, to w pdf file, .ps
> file or other or to go with math ml and use math player and other
> technologies and spoken math or combine it with Braille. There are solutions
> such as DotsPlus I find very interesting too and I am not sure where it
> falls into my mix of methods.
> What seems to be to be a clear starting point though is that the students
> need to be able to write professional documents and it seems like
> understanding and learning LaTeX is essential to that, even if they use,
> say, CahttyInfty (which I am about to try myself) it is still important to
> understand what it generates. And for our brailling staff, ideally, they
> need to try to push publishers to give us material in math ml or LaTeX, from
> there we can, at least in part, use software to translate the material into
> Nemith, math ml or leave it in LaTeX format for the student to read.
> We have a unique situation in that all the Icelandickids have Braille
> displays and Braille is a very common first approach to problems, since we
> did not have Icelandic tts speech engine for the longest time and the one we
> have developed now is not really good, also because any talking software we
> get, such as MathPlayer, we'd have to translate and that is very expensive
> (Icelanders speak excellent English so after, say, 2nd year of high school I
> am sure all users would have no probem using the English version, still it
> is official policy to provide as much material in Icelandic as possible).
> > From this list I gather there is no obvious, single solution to this
>    
>> problem
>>      
> and my priorities, unless someone points me in a different direction, would
> be to play with DotsPlus and find material I can use to teach students and
> Braille production staff LaTeX. I'd be happy with other suggestions but it
> seems like a reasonable start. For that I would very much like a book or web
> page with easy introduction or manual for LaTeX, something akin to
> programming books "for dummies" or teach yourself so and so in 24 hours, big
> fan of those as a programmer.
> Any pointers/thoughts/ideas would be welcome. We are in the unique position
> to reinvent the system and I want to do things right, or as close to right
> as possible.
> Thanks
> -Birkir
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Andrew Stacey
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 4:46 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX
>
> Thanks for all the interesting replies!
>
> Some of the comments, and the interview that was linked to by someone, made
> me
> wonder why I'm so obsessive about (La)TeX and why I don't want to give it
> up.
> I was particularly taken by that sentence in the interview about wanting to
> enter a source that validates, and how he thinks that backslashes and braces
> are just so wrong.  To me, that says that the person speaking is someone who
> supports TeX-users rather than someone who writes copious documents in it.
>
> For me, TeX is just so right!  And on so many different levels.  I've not
> tried to think this through before so I may misstate my thoughts, but here's
> a first go at why I like it so much.
>
> Firstly, it is discrete.  When writing a document in (la)tex, then I hardly
> notice that I'm writing anything other than the contents of the document
> itself.  I don't need to worry about formatting, what it looks like, or
> anything like that.  When I do need something more complicated, say
> mathematics, then TeX discretely offers a nice simple way to do it.
>
> Secondly, (as someone said in one of the replies) it is a programming
> language.  When I need the power of TeX then it's there.  I can define
> macros
> to save my poor fingers: typing \R instead of \mathbb{R} is fantastic!  And
> I can make it easy to change global settings, say by changing all
> composition
> of functions from right-to-left to left-to-right, and just know that
> everything's going to be alright.  I can do really complicated stuff when
> I need to.
>
> Thirdly, as a mathematician then TeX is the epitome of design.  The process
> "read, expand, read, expand" is exactly how we parse mathematics!  Keep
> expanding the definitions in a proof until you reach something that you
> understand.  So it's just beautiful that something so close to what I do
> professionally is also at the heart of how I present the results.
>
> So I'm not going to give up TeX without a huge fight.  No one's going to get
> me to have input that can be "validated".  Yuk!  What a horrible phrase!
> I want my mathematics to be validated, sure, but I'd like the freedom to
> really mess up the paper in the meantime.
>
> However, lest the mathml brigade lose heart, just because I'm going to go on
> writing TeX for as long as I've a finger left to hit the keyboard with,
> doesn't mean that I expect anyone other than me and TeX to read that.  Those
> who say that they like LaTeX on the web have probably never tried reading
> the
> source of one of my papers!  What I expect they mean is some sort of
> simplified LaTeX with no funny macros and the like.
>
> As far as reading what I write is concerned, then I'm convinced by the
> MathML
> argument.  So for me, an ideal situation would be to have a decent, robust,
> (La)TeX to MathML converter.  To my mind, MathML is an output language, like
> PDF, PS, or DVI.  So I'm quite happy to compile my LaTeX documents into
> MathML
> to make them more accessible.  If only there were a converter that could
> cope
> with my macros ...
>
> Andrew
>
> PS As an indication of my level of TeX addiction, I even wrote the
> invitations
> to my daughter's birthday party using TeX.
>
>
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