[Blindmath] Questions about complex formulas, tagging PDFs, and users' expectations

[John Gardner]

Hi.  First of all, thanks for asking!  Fortunately there is a right 
answer to your question, and it is about as easy as one could imagine. 
Just put up your pages in HTML with math expressed in MathML.  The 
difficulty is that you must require Internet Explorer users to install 
the (free) MathPlayer plug-in from Design Science to display that 
MathML.  MathML displays natively in Firefox and several minor web 
browsers.  Most scientists, both sighted and blind, strongly encourage 
academic institutions and government agencies to use MathML and bring 
increasing pressure on Microsoft to display MathML natively, as they 
should.  I am obviously one of that group.

In whatever case, MathML is accessible.  I can use Internet Explorer 
with that MathPlayer plug-in and read math with my screen reader just 
like anything else. With some minor improvements in screen readers, 
MathPlayer will also display math in official math codes on a braille 
display.

The other common solution to math access is what Wikipedia does.  Their 
math is put up as images with Alt tags having the LaTex equivalent. 
This is accessible to people who know Latex, but MathML provides better 
access and is the way of the future.  Please do it that way!

You are right to discontinue using PDF.  It is not even very accessible 
for text and certainly not for math.

John Gardner
Professor Emeritus of Physics, Oregon State University and
President, ViewPlus Technologies, Inc.



On 10/29/2009 4:27 PM, joseph.dalaker at census.gov wrote:
>
> Good evening
>
> I'm a statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau.  My work group has some
> statistical papers with lots of complex formulas (with Greek letters,
> indexed variables, letters with circumflex marks, subscripts and
> superscripts, etc.) that we want to publish on the web, and also ensure
> that the formulas can be read with a screen reader.  Everyone in my work
> group (including myself) is sighted.
>
> We traditionally have put up papers as PDFs, but I haven't had much luck
> getting Adobe to recognize how to read these formulas out loud.
>
> I have 2 questions about what to do next -- the first is about users'
> expectations, the second is technical.
>
> 1)  If we're stuck tagging the formulas by hand as figures, does the blind
> community have a commonly-held standard that is expected for reading
> complex formulas aloud?
>        I found this reprint of an article by Abraham Nemeth that describes a
> protocol for reading formulas aloud.
> http://people.rit.edu/easi/easisem/talkmath.htm
>
>        That Dr. Nemeth's system looked clear and elegant to me, coupled with
> the fact that Nemeth code is also used in Braille for math, makes it sound
> plausible to me like the above protocol was likely to be "the" standard
> protocol that the blind community would expect for math formulas, but I
> want to check that assumption.  I heard of an organization that reads and
> records textbooks, that I'm pretty sure does not use the above protocol
> verbatim.
>
>        Is there a "right" way to read formulas?
>
> 2) Following on the heels of 1), if we were to find software that could tag
> complex math formulas automatically, are there software packages that you
> think provide good results and are easy to use?
>
>        Or failing that, are there software features that you would recommend
> that we look for?   And what websites do a good job of tagging complex
> formulas?
>
> Thanks for any input you can provide.
>
> --Joe
>
>
> Joseph Dalaker
> Statistician
>
> Government Organization and Special Programs Branch
> Governments Division
> U.S. Census Bureau
>
>
>
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