[Blindmath] questions about LaTeX and accessibility for blind people

[Roopakshi Pathania]

Hi Joseph,

I see that Jared and Birkir have already answered your questions. Here are my inputs.

> The subject says it all. I'm exploring the use of the LaTeX
> typesetting
> system. I can use it to generate math equations and the
> like, but if i
> do so it's not accessible once I generate the final
> product. That's fine
> as far as writing goes, since I have the source I know what
> it says.
> However, I'd rather not contribute to the problems we
> already face where
> blindness and access to this sort of information is
> concerned. So, can
> anyone provide me with information on formatting these
> types of
> documents so they're accessible? Can it even be done?

Well you can convert your LaTeX source to XHTML + MathML using the TeX4ht package.
See this link for more information.
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/

Currently MathML is accessible to a screen reader user if you have the magic combination: Windows OS + IE + MathPlayer.
But one day in the far far future, it will be accessible on other browsers and other Oss, or so I hope…

> Also, I've noticed that when using pdflatex from the
> texlive-latex
> package under Linux, the resulting document appears to have
> one word per
> line when read by Window-Eyes and adobe Acrobat. I can tell
> you visually
> that it appears correctly on screen though. I see this as
> another
> potential access problem. Any clue how to fix that?

I use a different method. This is for Jaws, I hope that you can find a similar option for Window-Eyes.
While a PDF document is opened, I bring up the Adjust JAWS Options tree view (INSERT+V). Select the option “Document Presentation” and then press SPACEBAR once to select “Screen Layout” instead of the default “Simple Layout”.
The PDF is read correctly.
I have often observed that Adobe starts skipping pages when I don’t choose “Infer reading order from document” option, but maybe that’s just me.

Regards
Roopakshi from India