[Blindmath] Accessible LaTeX

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I have to say that when I looked at instiki, I was very pleased with the 
simplicity of the use of markdown with itex2mml. The other thing is that 
markdown doesn't limit you to what it can do, you can just break out 
into html if you need to (I haven't tried it but I have read you can).

My greatest concern with markdown with itex2mml is that it seems very 
orientated at XHTML documents, possibly if you want a more printer 
suitable format then LaTeX itself might be better. The importance of the 
control you gain in LaTeX when producing documents wouldn't really be 
felt until someone is likely to be continuing with maths or a subject 
requiring lots of maths notation.

Having said about those limitations of markdown with itex2mml, it 
probably would be very acceptable for a school student to produce 
documents that way and the syntax being so easy would also be useful.

Regarding the output, we know about mathplayer with speech output (I 
think it might have Braille or dots plus output but I haven't noticed 
that) and liblouisxml can be used (look at its xml2brl application) to 
produce Braille (Nemeth, UK or Marburg codes). Should there be any 
inaccuracy in the accessible output of these documents created using 
markdown with itex2mml, the source code is so simple that it should be 
possible to check what the document actually says.

Michael Whapples
On 13/11/09 08:20, Andrew Stacey wrote:
> I can't say anything to the output side but I have a suggestion for the input.
> I would recommend using markdown+itex2mml for input.  Let me explain why.
>
> It sounds as though one of the things that your solution has to do is make the
> output available in many different formats.  In particular, you must have an
> output for the blind and partially sighted users, and an output for the
> sighted people who will read and grade the assignments.  You therefore want
> a format that is easy to convert from.  Markdown with itex2mml provides this.
> It converts to pure LaTeX and to MathML and from there to PDF and PS, and
> presumably to Braille.  The conversion is almost 100% accurate (and the
> inaccuracy is known so can be easily avoided).  From what I've learned so far,
> there is no 100% accurate conversion from LaTeX to MathML (though there may
> still be something that I've not yet heard about).  In addition, the
> mathematics is easily readable by someone experienced in LaTeX with none of
> the potential difficulties that new and strange commands can introduce.
>
> It is also easy to learn.  As you are looking for a solution for students, it
> can't be assumed that they will all go on to become people who write
> mathematical documents every day.  So although my default is to recommend
> LaTeX, the steep initial learning curve together with the dubious long-term
> use makes me hesitant to do so.  I don't know how it feels to a blind user,
> but I would regard Markdown+itex2mml as much easier than LaTeX.  The
> mathematics part of Markdown+itex2mml is very close to a subset of LaTeX so
> someone who wanted to go on to learn LaTeX would have gained a head start.
>
> Markdown with itex2mml is the default format in instiki, but it can also work
> as a standalone program.  If you (or anyone else) is interested in installing
> it then I'd be happy to help.
>
> As an aside, I would recommend that those responsible for producing large
> quantities of documents learn LaTeX for producing mathematics.  If someone is
> going to be doing it for a reasonable length of time then it is a skill
> definitely worth acquiring.  The standard place to start learning is the "Not
> So Short Guide to LaTeX2e" (generally called lshort2e.pdf in a standard tex
> distribution).  I don't know if there's an accessible version of it (if not,
> there should be!) nor if there is another guide specifically aimed at
> blind/partially sighted users.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Andrew Stacey
>
>
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