[Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable braille display
Lewicki, Maureen
mlewicki at bcsd.neric.org
Thu Apr 24 15:41:55 UTC 2014
I too use Bookshare, and it allows me to access at least some of the book. What irritates me, however, is that publishers can claim that the books are accessible, and they are really not, without someone reentering more than half of the material.
For what it is worth, I kept downloading the brf files, and then entering things with 6 key entry. If you are a transcriber or TVI, with vision, I discovered downloading the daisy, with no images, then unzipping the file, then opening the HTML doc gives me everything. Then I can more easily run it through Math type, and translate(good for those without braille training)
And since the format is still there,I can more easily see how it matches up to the print version.
I know this does not help my blind colleagues but thought I would mention....for students, at least you can access a print version for a reader, tutor, or study mate??
Maureen Murphy Lewicki
Maureen Murphy Lewicki
Teacher of Visually Impaired
Bethlehem Central School
332 Kenwood AvenueDelmar, NY 12054
http://bethlehemschools.org
(518) 439-7460
Fax (518) 475-0092
"The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight. The
real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of education that
exists. If a blind person has the proper training and
opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a mere physical
nuisance."Kenneth Jernigan
-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Shannon Pruitt
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 9:18 AM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Creating braille math for a refreshable braille display
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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>>
>>
>> --
>> 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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