[Blindmath] accessible, searchable pdf generated from LaTeX, possible?

[Hajas Dániel]

Hi All,

 

I would like to ask for your advice and help in converting some pdf
documents into accessible pdf files.

 

I have a few documents that I created using LaTeX and compiled into pdf. The
files have chapters, sections, mainly text, some lists, tables, figures and
a bit of mathematical equations in them as well. The problem is that the
compiled pdfs are totally inaccessible. The text just falls apart when I try
to read it with a screen reader. 

 

As I am making these documents publicly available and blind users might come
across it as well, I would like to make the pdfs as accessible as possible.
Probably the maths can not be which should not be a problem as I can publish
a LaTeX source file with the relevant maths in it, however I would like to
make the rest of the articles to be searchable. Meaning the text appears
nicely, figure captions are readable well, lists and tables sound as they
should using JAWS or any other screen reader.

 

Do I need to do something before compiling a source into pdf or is it
possible somehow to label the ready pdfs and make them more readable?

 

I am planning on publishing the same files in alternative formats such as
.doc, .txt, audio formats etc aside the good looking pdf for sighted people
but still I wish to have the latter one accessible as much as possible.

 

Thanks a lot,

Daniel