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

Sun Jun 7 23:44:16 UTC 2015

Hi Daniel et al.

I regularly create both pdf and html versions of documents from latex sources because the pdf is not accessible; it also doesn't look like they will be accessible any time soon either so  you will need to find an accessible alternative instead of pdf.

I create the pdf as normal but also use tex4ht as well. It comes with the miktex2.9 installation.
I know that tex4ht can make accessible mathematical content but I'm not totally happy with it.
Tim's suggestion does make accessible math content though.

You might also need to consider re-thinking the way you write up your work so that it is less pdf oriented in the first place. If you think of creating an HTML file you will be creating something that is equally readable by all users. Making a pdf from there would be relatively simple.

You might therefor consider starting to write your work using markdown instead of latex.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Hajas Dániel via Blindmath
Sent: Monday, 8 June 2015 10:52 a.m.
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Cc: Hajas Dániel
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] accessible, searchable pdf generated from LaTeX, possible?

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the link but that is not the problem here. In any case I need to compile some of my documentation into pdf for the sighted research partners or anyone who might want to see our research documents. 

For the Blind users of course I have a number of other accessible formats. For example the html content of our site covers most of the material but also I shall have alternative text files as I said in my earlier e-mail.

Just want to bring most out of the pdf files as well.

Thanks,
Daniel
-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tim Arnold via Blindmath
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2015 9:35 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Cc: Tim Arnold
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] accessible, searchable pdf generated from LaTeX, possible?

Hi Daniel,
As far as I know, PDFs are not very accessible. Since you are working with LaTeX files, you might try this site to convert to html/mathml:

http://convertlatex.com

Let me know if you have problems with the site.
thanks,
--Tim

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Hajas Dániel <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
>
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