[Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable braille display

Thu Apr 24 13:18:19 UTC 2014

As a student I understand how frustrating this must be but as a teacher I still find the books very useful because I can pull the text from Bookshare and the insert the equations correctly. Thus pulling off all of the math and science books would be detrimental to me. I would suggest that you consult with your college's disabilities office as they should be responsible for making that text accessible to you. 

Shannon Pruitt 

> On Apr 24, 2014, at 8:31 AM, "Smith, Andrew" <smitha3 at students.rowan.edu> wrote:
> 
> I have seen many math books from Bookshare with this same problem.
> I'm enrolled in a calculus course right now, for instance, and many,
> many equations have been replaced with the text, "equation removed."
> 
> I complained to Bookshare support, telling them that for obvious
> reasons, this book, and many others like it, are literally useless.
> Turns out that all they guarantee is access to the text.  They're
> "looking into" ways to make accessible equations.
> 
> I would tell them that, until they figure it out, they should remove
> every single math and science book from the library.  It's lulling all
> kinds of students, university faculty, etc into thinking that books
> are available when they might as well not be, since they're quite
> useless in their current form.
> 
> 
>> On 4/24/14, George Bell <george at techno-vision.co.uk> wrote:
>> I'm afraid this is very much down to Bookshare.  It seems totally pointless
>> to produce any literature where such material is simply "omitted",
>> especially when there are tools available to not only input and display the
>> equations visually, but also enable them to be imported into braille.
>> 
>> We have been working very closely with Duxbury, Design Science and braille
>> math end users, and make extensive use of MathType in Word for Windows.
>> MathType is a low cost add-on for Word, hence tends to be favoured where
>> budgets are tight.
>> 
>> You can import a Word file containing MathType "Objects" into the Duxbury
>> Braille Translator (DBT) where, if necessary, further editing of the braille
>> may be performed.  With the latest versions of Duxbury (11.2 SR1 is the most
>> recent) further improvements have been made, and will continue to be made as
>> issues arise.
>> 
>> With MathType itself, it is just a couple of keystrokes to convert a
>> visually displayed equation into a number of text formats such as LaTeX,
>> which in turn makes it a handy teaching tool.
>> 
>> George
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>> Littlefield, Tyler
>> Sent: 24 April 2014 05:07
>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable braille
>> display
>> 
>> Hello all:
>> The OP of this thread was Bridget, who is who I work with to get materials
>> brailled, etc.
>> This topic came up because we have University Physics, 13th ed from
>> Bookshare and there are a lot of places where it just shows [equation
>> omitted] or a lot of the exercises are not written properly.
>> We were looking for a way to make this more accessible. She asked about
>> LaTeX to see if we could somehow fill in the missing portions of the book,
>> for example.
>> 
>> If anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. Either for
>> how to make this process work, or of a version of this book that is already
>> brailled, or is in BRF format and can be read.
>> Thanks,
>>> On 4/23/2014 10:31 AM, Michael Whapples wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> My memory of Duxbury and Scientific notebook is that scientific
>>> notebook produces a flavour of LaTeX, it may even have added some of
>>> its own command definitions.
>>> 
>>> This is the thing with LaTeX, there normally is so many different ways
>>> of doing things, one may define their own commands, etc, so it is very
>>> unlikely that any software will support all LaTeX files.
>>> 
>>> When I was doing my physics degree we had a whole list of LaTeX which
>>> Duxbury understood and another list of LaTeX which did not agree with
>>> duxbury.
>>> 
>>> I know that even some of the LaTeX from scientific notebook did not
>>> agree with duxbury, so normally the LaTeX was hand edited with the
>>> typists paying attention to the above mentioned lists.
>>> 
>>> So I think my comment is that it supports LaTeX in a limited form, not
>>> necessarily restricted to what scientific notebook produced.
>>> 
>>> Also it is worth noting that I am speaking of my experience of
>>> obtaining UK Braille from Duxbury and it was about 2006 when I last
>>> used it. Things may have improved and may be different for Nemeth output.
>>> 
>>> Michael Whapples
>>>> On 23/04/2014 15:14, John Gardner wrote:
>>>> Hello, I am surprised by this exchange. My understanding is that
>>>> Duxbury translates files made by Scientific Notebook but not "real'
>>>> Tex files.  I know that there are Duxbury people on this list.
>>>> Please confirm if Duxbury can translate regular LaTeX.  If so I agree
>>>> that it would be awesome.
>>>> 
>>>> In case Duxbury cannot translate LaTeX, there are several ways to get
>>>> Latex to conventional braille.  I confess I am not sure I know all of
>>>> them.  One that works quite well is the Tex2Word application
>>>> available from http://www.chikrii.com/products/tex2word/tex-to-word/
>>>> for about US$50.  Then use the methods I described earlier for MS
>>>> Word.
>>>> 
>>>> John G
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Littlefield, Tyler
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 6:39 PM
>>>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable
>>>> braille display
>>>> 
>>>> hello:
>>>> What are the chances of getting a math book in TeX? This is an
>>>> awesome solution if it's viable, but I'm thinking it's not due to
>>>> publishers.
>>>> 
>>>> What sorts of solutions exist for reading brf on a pc?
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> On 4/22/2014 7:53 PM, Sarah Jevnikar wrote:
>>>>> If math is authored in TeX, it can be opened in Duxbury and saved as
>>>>> a brf
>>>> file. Then it can be read on a Braille display.
>>>>> HTH,
>>>>> Sarah
>>>>> 
>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>> From: Blindmath [blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Lynn
>>>>> Reed
>>>> [iamlvr at yahoo.com]
>>>>> Sent: April 22, 2014 3:30 PM
>>>>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable
>>>>> braille
>>>> display
>>>>> Sorry guys.....sent to wrong address.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Peace and Love to all!
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Apr 22, 2014, at 12:28 PM, Lynn Reed <iamlvr at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> This may be helpful for Ellie? Not sure.......
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Peace and Love to all!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Apr 22, 2014, at 11:23 AM, "McNamee, Bridget"
>>>>>>> <mcnameeb at wit.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> Does anyone have step by step instructions on how to author
>>>>>>> accessible
>>>> math that can be used with a refreshable braille display?
>>>>>>> 
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>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Take care,
>> Ty
>> http://tds-solutions.net
>> He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that
>> dares not reason is a slave.
>> 
>> 
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