[Blindmath] Embossing documents with MathML into Nemeth, 3 scenarios.

[Birkir R. Gunnarsson]

Hi John

Yes, I will provide a link to BrailleBlaster in the online version of
the presentation, to make sure people are aware of the great job the
Liblouis team is doing.
I have yet to see a reliable refreshable braille display Nemeth
softwrae that I can use with a screen reader or MathPlayer, if I am
missing something, please let me know what it is.
But many people prefer to have math on paper (myself included), so I
wanted to explain what options there are for the documents the
students are most likely to receive.
The base of all math production that I have tested and been involved
with is Word with MathML embedded, and I know that scenario well.
However it is, in itself, not accessible, unless you know LaTeX (all
MathML objects can be converted to LaTeX if MathType is installed).
MathPlayer does not (yet, hint hint Neil) support accessible speaking
of math in MS Word documents, though I sincerely wish it could do
that.
Of course there are other issues with Word, copyright worries will
probably ensure that Word with embedded MathML will never be a popular
format for distribution of math text books, so we need to look to
Daisy or Epub3.
Thanks
-Birkir

On 7/18/11, John J. Boyer <john.boyer at abilitiessoft.com> wrote:
> Braille material does not have to be embossed. Many people prefer using
> a Braille display. An embosser is necessary to produce tactile graphics.
> When a full-page braille display becomes available many peo9ple will
> prefer it for that.
>
> TSS uses the liblouis and liblouisxml software, which can translate
> MathML to Nemeth and other Braille math codes. ViewPlus is also
> sponsoring BrailleBlaster as the open source successor to TSS.
>
> John
>
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 02:50:35PM +0000, Birkir Gunarsson wrote:
>> Hello everyone
>>
>> I truly believe this to be the last question for some time, but I want
>> to be sure I am presenting the right facts on this to students.
>> Ideally a student would get the Word with MathML document to emboss,
>> and has ViewPlus or Duxbury, plus an embosser to do the deed, but what
>> of the other eAccessible options:
>>
>> 1. XHtml with MathML (poplar format for MathPlayer). Can this be
>> embossed directly through either TSS or Duxbury? If not, how
>> successful is the necessary transformation (I would imagine opening
>> the document in Word and embossing it from there).
>>
>> 2. A Daisy book with MathML. How difficult/easy is it to emboss
>> document with embedded math from this?
>>
>> 3. A Text document containing LaTeX. Can it be converted directly to
>> Nemeth (I believe so with both DBT and TSS), rather than having to go
>> through Word/MathType or LaTeX to MathML convertion first. I belive
>> that DBT actually uses LaTeX as the basis for its Nemeth convertion
>> and converts MathML to LaTeX before converting to Nemeth, though I may
>> be wrong.
>>
>> I don't have access to an embosser currently, so I can't try these out
>> for myself.
>> However, I know frequent users and employees monitor this list, so
>> feel free to give me answers or just point me to relevant web sites (I
>> have a lot of this info already in any case, but just wanted to give
>> people a chance to comment on their experiences).
>> -B
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blindmath mailing list
>> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> Blindmath:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/john.boyer%40abilitiessoft.com
>
> --
> John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
> Abilitiessoft, Inc.
> http://www.abilitiessoft.com
> Madison, Wisconsin USA
> Developing software for people with disabilities
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/birkir.gunnarsson%40gmail.com
>