[Blindmath] Questions Regarding Formula Reading With JAWS

[Trevor Attenberg]

Hi Blind Math List,

As the subject line suggests, I am interested in relatively simple means of
reading formulas with JAWS. Unlike many emailers whose messages I explored
in archives, I am not interested in editing formulas into LaTeX or the like
at this point. I am however curious how one would non-visually comprehend
formulas that appear only as graphics in an MS Word, PDF, or HTML file. For
instance, in an attempt to gain greater understanding of ecologically
relevant entropy usage, I ran across an article from Jost (2006). The
article contained tables I could largely comprehend-the sort I could easily
compose; but whole formulas in the article were all determined to be
shapefile graphics by JAWS; thus I could not fully understand the principal
messages of the paper. Such a thing has happened to me many times. What
would one do in such a scenario, when there is an ad hoc scientific query
that requires understanding of formulas? One idea I've tried is to run the
entire document through an OCR recognition program (I have OpenBook with its
"Freedom Import Printer" on my machine); but the results are usually far
from satisfying. In addition, I do not have JAWS scripted or set up to
recognize all the appropriate symbology: Greek letters etc. Actually, I've
never monkeyed with JAWS scripts before. Would anyone here be able to advise
on how to execute this for mathematically relevant symbols. If there are
clear materials and directions for this online, feel free to direct me. 

Finally; I know there's been much talk of LaTeX on this list going back a
long way. Perhaps I've been living in a cave; but I've only just come to
understand (thank you Wikipedia) that LaTex is a markup language for
representing mathematical content; apparently for the principal purpose of
aesthetics and ease of visual comprehension. For those of us with no current
need to edit LaTeX files, is there a simple means of translating LaTeX
rendered formulas, such as those so often presented on websites like
Wikipedia? I saw the Website "latex-access", witch directed me to "SVN"
related websites for scripts. For one thing, I do not know what SVN is;
another thing is I was not sure what to look for once I clicked on the
links; nor was I assured that the "On the Fly" tools I thought might help
were here. It is also not entirely clear if what this latex-access website
discusses is quite what I'm looking for; though it sounds like it is and
more. I deeply apologize if this is all old-hat and juvenalia to most of
you. 

If this does indeed sound like topics that have been thoroughly covered on
the list before, or it is below most of us; do then contact me off list
(tattenberg at gmail.com) , and consider directing me to an archival discussion
on these exact issues.

One more thing: has the Blind User's list been used as yet? I haven't gotten
any messages in my inbox since signing up; and I do indeed have a couple R
questions; perhaps I will need to poke through my ample spam collection.

Best to all of you; especially if you read this far!

Trevor A           



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