[Blindmath] Help with Math player

Fri Jan 14 14:57:47 UTC 2011

Hello

I actually do work for MathPlayer and Design Science, so I can speak
to this a little bit.
Part of the problem has been the very slow adoption of the MathML
standard (the w3c standard used to display math on the web or in
eBooks).
Math has traditionally only been displayed in bitmap graphics and
there is nothing any screen reader can do with that.
We are hoping that MathML will become more widespread, both on the web
and in eBooks, and could become the stanard for exchanging accessible
math and STEM texts.
MathPlayer, currently, turns MathML expressions into spoken text, and
in future versions we would very much be looking at refreshable
braille output, for instance, by connecting with the Liblouis
libraries, because braille is essential to many math students who are
blind. We could also look at better speech navigation and speech
scheme customization and other cool user features (this is not a
promise, but this is definitely something we would look into). Other
possibilities include having MathPlayer work better with other
software, eBook readers, Word, other browsers, pdf (once it is better
standardized) etc.

But all that development is useless if the standard is not used, if
nobody requests the features from their screen reader vendors and if
online courses and eBooks do not use MathML but keep displaying math
in graphics.
We very much hope this year is a watershed moment, with the free
MathJax development, that makes authoring and displaying math in web
pages much easier, better, and supported in multiple browsers.
Also we think the convertion to eBooks provides a unique opportunity
for us to request more accessible math.

Currently you can read speech output of a page with MathML in it in IE
with MathPlayer installed (it is freeware).
If you have MathType you can open a Word document with MathML in it
and read it two ways:
You can export it as MathPage and then read it with IE and MathPlayer
or you can select the entire text and press alt-backslash, which turns
all MathML objects in the document to LaTeX code.

You can, furthermore, emboss the MathMl document into text with Nemeth
if you have the TSS software from ViewPlus, or emboss it with Nemeth,
after transforming all MathML objects to LaTeX with DBT 10.7 and
above.

You can also enter equations in MathType in LaTeX mode and then press
alt-backslash to switch to MathML and display math in your document
that way.

We sure hope this is just the beginning. We need screen reader vendors
to work more closely with us to better display math and add braille
and other support, we need online learning platforms to start using
MathML for courses to make them instantly accessible, we need
publishers and alternative text producers to start using MathML as
standard in all documents (some alternative text producers do this
already, others are not quite there yet).
We need people who want more accessible math, to write the software
vendors they use and let them know this is important.
I certainly hope this does not really come of as advertizing, that is
not my intent though I joined DSI because I was excited for the
opportunity to improve math accessibility, but it is up to us users to
request better accessibility and standardization of math so that we
can start working with our science books instantly instead of waiting
for months while they are being manually transcribed, and the use of
non-proprietary standards can bring that about.
All that being said *grin*.
LaTeX manual can be found here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX

and you can use the TexNic center for LaTeX editing (it will help
debug your code too).
There are a few tricks setting it up.
Under tools and options there are two choices that must be checked
"use classic inerface" and "optimize for screen reader users".
Theh you must create an output profile, which means linking to a LaTeX
compiler such as MiTeX.
If you require specific help feel free to email me off list.
I've been meaning to set up an accessible math tools web page for the
longest time, may be I better get around to it.
Hope any of this helps.
-Birkir

On 1/14/11, Sean Tikkun <jaquis at mac.com> wrote:
> Greg,
>
> 	I'm looking at some of the LaTex and the rules and design is not incredibly
> different from Nemeth.  Or any of the many other CAS languages for that
> matter.  There's got to be a coming together at some point.  I want a screen
> reader that sees: x = #frac{y+z/2}{y^{2}+1} and can both say it and produce
> the nemeth accurately.  Seems like a simple enough 1-1 mapping with some
> additional conditions.  Aren't the conditions for grade 2 braille actually
> more complex?
>
>
> On Jan 14, 2011, at 6:05 AM, Greg wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> No I do not know latex at all.  I was hoping to avoid using it.  I did not
>> want to have to learn a programming language on top of everything else I
>> have to learn for school.  Though I believe I am going to have to learn
>> it. Anyone have suggestions on a good place to start learning it?  Also,
>> anyone know of a good editor for it?
>> Thanks,
>> Greg Wocher
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roopakshi Pathania"
>> <r_akshi_tgk at yahoo.com>
>> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics"
>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 8:20 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Help with Math player
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>> Just clearing my inbox, so saw this.
>> Yes, you can use Microsoft Word and MathType to do your homework because
>> although MathType equations are inaccessible, the process of typing in
>> LaTeX expressions and then converting them into MathType symbols isn't.
>> The key question here is: do you know LaTeX symbols for the level of Math
>> you are dealing with?
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPod Touch
>>
>>
>> --- On Tue, 12/28/10, Greg <gwblindman1 at gwblindman.org> wrote:
>>
>>> From: Greg <gwblindman1 at gwblindman.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Help with Math player
>>> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics"
>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>> Date: Tuesday, December 28, 2010, 11:16 PM
>>> Hello Neil,
>>> It fixed it just fine. Thank you for your help.
>>> I had to go to the information bar and allow active x
>>> controls to run. I have found that for just about all
>>> the examples I dont need to have math player to speak the
>>> expression. It reads just fine using my screen
>>> reader. Another question for you. Is math type
>>> accessible for screen reader users to use. I am trying
>>> to find a way for me to do my homework in microsoft word.
>>> Thank you,
>>> Greg Wocher
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Neil Soiffer" <NeilS at dessci.com>
>>> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics"
>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 12:24 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Help with Math player
>>>
>>>
>>> > The most common reason we have seen for people not
>>> being able to use
>>> > MathPlayer is that they don't notice IE's ActiveX
>>> warning. It's a small
>>> > "information bar" at the top of the content window
>>> (below the various
>>> > buttons) that appears with a beep. What what
>>> I've heard, IE is not very
>>> > good with screen readers about making this warning
>>> obvious. You need to say
>>> > it is ok to run the blocked content.
>>> >
>>> > Also, if you are using local content (eg, files you
>>> downloaded to your
>>> > computer), you need to make the change described
>>> here:
>>> > http://www.dessci.com/en/support/mathplayer/tsn/tsn111.htm
>>> >
>>> > Again, this is security issue that IE imposes on
>>> plug-ins like MathPlayer.
>>> >
>>> > MathPlayer will run on a 64-bit OS, but only with
>>> 32-bit IE. 32 bit IE is
>>> > the default because only a few vendors have a 64-bit
>>> version of their
>>> > plug-in; if Microsoft made the 64-bit the default,
>>> very little would work
>>> > with IE and users would complain.
>>> >
>>> > I hope this fixes your problem,
>>> >
>>> > Neil Soiffer
>>> > Senior Scientist
>>> > Design Science, Inc.
>>> > www.dessci.com
>>> > ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy,
>>> Equation Editor ~
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:42 AM, Greg <gwblindman1 at gwblindman.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Hello all,
>>> >> I am running JAWS 12 on a Vista 32 bit system with
>>> IE7. I downloaded and
>>> >> installed Math Player 2.2. I cant get it to
>>> work. I have a basic algebra
>>> >> math class starting next week and I do my classes
>>> online. For the tests
>>> >> they have an online lab that uses Math ML. I
>>> can not get math player to
>>> >> work. I went to the web page from the users
>>> manual and tried looking at
>>> >> there examples and I can not find any of the math
>>> player options. I went to
>>> >> manage my add ons and did not see math player
>>> listed there. Anyone have
>>> >> suggestions on what I can do? Also, I have
>>> another laptop running Windows
>>> >> seven 64bit with IE8. Will math player work
>>> with it?
>>> >> Thank you,
>>> >> Greg Wocher
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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