[Blindmath] Math Textbook Accesibility Questions: HELP!

[Andrew Cioffi]

Hi folks,

I am new to the field of making materials accessible for blind or low vision students.

My current challenge: students has requested that his math text be made available in LaTeX code.  The publisher has provided that full text in PDF files by chapter.  I have tried numerous things, and am not getting any clear results.

I would like to preface this all by the fact that I have very limited background of LaTeX, and cannot use it author any source code

I have downloaded the free trial version of ifntyreader, and have used it with mixed results.  For any of the chapters provided by the publisher, ifnty won't recognize them until I open them and save them as a copy.  Each chapter is about 150 pages, so it takes quite a while for ifnty to trudge through (roughly one hour per chapter).  The output LOOKS like LaTeX, but sometimes the ifntyreader only outputs a TIFF of each page.  Other times, it provides some jumbled LaTeX output.

I have figured out that the problem with the output is that information exists in multiple columns in the publisher provided PDFs and it appears that the output is created linearly (forgive me if I am using incorrect terminology here), hence the jumbled LaTeX.  Is there a way to get around this?  Is there a program that can be used to modify the layout of the PDF to make it all exist in one column?

My ifnty demo runs out in about 12 days, so I am trying to figure some of these issues out before deciding on whether to buy the program or not.

I also tried printing pages and scanning them in, and THEN running them through inftyreader.  This produced the same jumbled output, now with lots of typos to be corrected.  Not sure that this is the route to go.

How have folks dealt with scanning text book pages into ifnty that happen to have some complex layouts???

The student is ultimately looking to receive his materials for this course in a format that can accurately be read by a screen reader.  Any thoughts on what is the most effective and reliable way to convert these publisher provided PDFs?

Did I mention that he is an engineering major that will be starting in September???

There is MUCH helpful information in the Blindmath archives, and I am thankful for any help that you all may be able to provide.

Andrew Cioffi
Assistant Director
Office Location: 73 Tremont Street, 7th Floor
Mailing Address: 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108
Phone: (617) 994-6820
Email: acioffi at suffolk.edu<mailto:kbehling at suffolk.edu>
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