[Blindmath] answer about LaTeX to html

Fri Feb 17 23:32:43 UTC 2017

Not at all. The project was for the purpose of providing additional access modes, ideally to be used simultaneously if desired and both formats are available, not to take anything away. The original poster asked whether blind people could use MathPlayer and NVDA. The answer, from our results, appears to be Yes, at least under the circumstances studied. Saying that one mode is useful, and comparable in some respects, for some students, to another mode, is not at all to advocate that the other mode be denied to anyone. I am not aware of anyone advocating taking away braille.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lois Frankel, Ph.D.
Assessment Specialist IV, Assessment Development
Educational Testing Service
Mail Stop 14-N   Room N157  609-683-2985
(All views expressed are my own, not necessarily those of Educational
Testing Service)

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Fjelsted [mailto:kfjelsted at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 6:24 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Frankel, Lois E <lfrankel at ETS.ORG>
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] answer about LaTeX to html

This sounds like an approach by an organisation to attempt to justify not providing Braille. When ever we see this kind of nonsense we need to advocate eliminating print for Math problem solvimg for sighted users. How is it OK for  Blind people to be denied Braille!

> On Feb 17, 2017, at 4:39 PM, Frankel, Lois E via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> In our grant project, we did test MathPlayer/NVDA with students with no usable vision, and in our small sample of 8 students in secondary school, they were able to solve the math problems we studied as accurately with the MathPlayer/NVDA combination as they were with braille (though it usually took longer). The paper describing the study is currently in the page-proof stage and should be available shortly. I'll try to remember to announce that here when it is. This was tested using math expressions of our own making, so I can't comment on the example linked below.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Lois Frankel, Ph.D.
> Assessment Specialist IV, Assessment Development Educational Testing
> Service
> Mail Stop 14-N   Room N157  609-683-2985
> (All views expressed are my own, not necessarily those of Educational
> Testing Service)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
> Lukasz Grabowski via Blindmath
> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 12:03 PM
> To: Lucas Radaelli <lucasradaelli at gmail.com>
> Cc: Łukasz Grabowski <graboluk at gmail.com>; Blind Math list for those
> interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] answer about LaTeX to html
>
> By the dafault it's the former, i.e. mathml. But it's very
> configurable and if you prefer latex source as alt then probably it
> can be done (although probably that's not much more helpful than
> reading the source)
>
> NVDA with math player does (what it seems to me is) a reasonable job with reading. You can try an example problem sheet here:
> http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/grabows1/accessible/math103/Week14.te
> x/S0.SSx2.html
>
> Having said that, I'm preparing materials for a visually impaired student this year (legally bordercase blind, but with enough vision to read the above link at about 300% zoom), so I don't have any real experience on whether NVDA with mathplayer would work for a  maths student with no vision at all.
>
> So if you are or know a blind maths student I would actually be very interested to know whether a page as above is accessible via NVDA with math player.
>
> Best,
> Łukasz
>
>
> On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:45:37 -0200
> Lucas Radaelli <lucasradaelli at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Does latexml convert the output formulas to mathml or it puts the
>> Latex source as alt in the images? if the former, what to use to read
>> the formulas?
>>
>>> On 16/02/2017 13:22, Łukasz Grabowski via Blindmath wrote:
>>> Hi Russell,
>>>
>>> I speak as someone who has tried different approaches to converting
>>> latex to accessible html this year - pandoc is not good for this
>>> purpuse, you should really use latexml if you have a tex file which
>>> you need to convert to an accessible version.
>>>
>>> What pandoc is absolutely great for is writing new documents. Also
>>> if I had a blind maths student which I needed to teach to write
>>> mathematical documents, I would go with pandoc.
>>>
>>> The point is that pandoc very intelligently restricts what you can
>>> do in a document, allowng to focus on the content, lowering the
>>> numberof typos, etc.. But converting existing latex documents to
>>> pandoc (or should I say "pandoc markdown" to be completely correct)
>>> is a pain.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Łukasz
>>>
>>> On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 08:13:34 -0700
>>> Russell Solowoniuk via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Mathieu,
>>>>
>>>> Assuming one could obtain a math or physics textbook in LaTeX
>>>> format, would it be possible to run the textbook file through
>>>> Pandoc and end up with a screen reader accessible version of the
>>>> text? Or, would a lot of editing need to be done before using
>>>> Pandoc, i.e. removing images, diagrams, etc.?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Russell
>>>>
>>>> Russell Solowoniuk
>>>> AT Educational Assistant, Services to Students with Disabilities
>>>> MacEwan University
>>>> 7-198 D4, 10700-104 Ave.
>>>> Edmonton, AB  T5J 4S2
>>>> E: solowoniukr at macewan.ca
>>>> T:  780-497-5826
>>>> F:  780-497-4018
>>>> macewan.ca
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> Mathieu Barbe via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> 2017-02-16
>>>>>>> 3:20 AM >>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> pandoc is a good solution to convert math.
>>>>
>>>> Pandoc can convert markdown to html with mathml or mathjax.
>>>> For instance :
>>>>
>>>> code markdown :
>>>>
>>>> % My title
>>>> % My name
>>>> % 16 Feb 2017
>>>>
>>>> # My equation and level 1
>>>>
>>>> This is a sum :
>>>>
>>>> $\sum_{i=0}^n i^2$
>>>>
>>>> End markdown code
>>>>
>>>> type in the command line :
>>>>
>>>> pandoc -s --mathml source.markdown -o out.html
>>>>
>>>> if you want mathjax instead of mathml, replace --mathml by
>>>> --mathjax!
>>>>
>>>> If you have LaTeX source you also convert in html web page.
>>>
>>>> however, if tex source contains specials commands, there may be
>>>> errors.
>>>>
>>>> command line :
>>>>
>>>> pandoc -s --mathml source.tex -o out.html
>>>>
>>>> The -s option ask to pandoc to generate header before your texte.
>>>>
>>>> ++ Mathieu
>>>>
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