[Blindmath] Subscript and superscript notation and mathml

[John Gardner]

Well the question is how mainstream authors write math. Most scientists use one of the following to author scientific documents. More or less in order of popularity:
* MS Word with the MathType math editor,
* LaTeX or some flavor of TeX,
* MS Word with the native MS math editor.

* Because of its popularity and because of the positive attitude of Design Science, the manufacturer of MathType, the first of these has now become pretty accessible. But only recently. There are at least two ways for blind people to author Word+MathType documents.
* Microsoft's native math editor is marginally accessible, and MS is working to improve its accessibility. However, MathType can convert equations in this format to MathType, so documents authored with the native editor need not be accessible, because anybody can convert them to a format that is very accessible. The native math editor is not really accessible to blind authors at this time.
* Latex/TeX source code is written in ASCII characters. So it is accessible for both reading and writing by blind users, though quite clumsy. But the compiled output is not accessible, so accessibility of LaTeX/TeX documents depends on the reader's ability to get a source file.

The original document are often converted to some format for the web or paper or electronic documents, and this conversion process has made even accessible documents inaccessible again. Recent developments, in particular MathJax, are now making it possible for web documents to be accessible.

So it is now possible in principle and practice for documents to be created in accessible formats and published in accessible formats. This is unfortunately still not as common as we would wish. But we are definitely making progress.

John Gardner


-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Star Gazer via Blindmath
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 5:53 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics' <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Star Gazer <pickrellrebecca at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Subscript and superscript notation and mathml

				John,
I have often thought this, that until recently it wasn't possible for authors to write math so that it was both mainstream and accessable. Can you explain why exactly? I'm mostly looking for words to use to explain it to others. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John Gardner via Blindmath
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 7:54 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: John Gardner <john.gardner at viewplus.com>
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Subscript and superscript notation and mathml

Karen, the answer is "it depends". But it is largely accurate to say that sub and superscripts need to be in some standard math notation and not just shown in sub or superscript position in Word, HTML, etc. MathML is good, but LaTeX is often readable too - where one would read x^3 for x cubed for example. 

Math is still a moving target. And the target is really moving slowly. But still it is possible for authors to write math nowadays so it is both mainstream and accessible. This was not true a decade ago.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Karen Sorensen via Blindmath
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 1:14 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List <webaim-forum at list.webaim.org>; blindmath at nfbnet.org
Cc: Karen Sorensen <karen.sorensen at pcc.edu>
Subject: [Blindmath] Subscript and superscript notation and mathml

Hi -
I have been under the impression that subscript and superscript math and science notation (ie, exponents) had to be in MathML to be accessible. Is that true? I understand that if the number with the exponent is in an equation, it should be in MathML, but if there is just a number with an exponent, does it have to be in MathML for a screen reader to read it accurately?
Thank you for your advice.
Best,
Karen
Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses www.pcc.edu/access Portland Community College
971-722-4720
Twitter: @ksorensun
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