[BlindMath] data analysis question

Thu Apr 5 00:08:29 UTC 2018

There are a lot of free tutorials on excel.  I used to teach Office in Canada and found that the Office online ttuorials are pretty good but if you want one that is geared to a screen reader APH has their one for Excel 2007 on sale right now at

http://shop.aph.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_Verbal%20View%20of%20Excel%202007_D-10520-00P_10001_11051

You can find all the shortcuts out on line or just going through the help of your screen reader and the help of Excel.  It does help to go through a class on basic excel if you can find one from your local college just so you can get a good over view on what a spread sheet is good for.  Sometimes they have a couple day classes.  Where are you located?  This is a 365 page here:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/excel-2013-training-aaae974d-3f47-41d9-895e-97a71c2e8a4a

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Zhen Holmes via BlindMath
Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2018 7:32 PM
To: sarah.jevnikar at gmail.com; Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Zhen Holmes <zhen.m.holmes at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] data analysis question

Thanks so much. It looks like excel will be the best option for now.  But I  haven’t found a commands sheet that’s very helpful, or a good screen reader excel  tutorial. If you are familiar with the program, I’d appreciate the information. 
Best,
ZH 

> On Apr 4, 2018, at 3:43 PM, Sarah Jevnikar via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Zhen,
> Excel might be the most user-friendly means to start, though R or 
> similar programs might be more robust ultimately.
> 
> By naming a region of cells, any user can automatically have their 
> column and row titles read to them just by navigating a sheet. This 
> works independently of a screen reader. I can send you specific 
> instructions if that would help.
> 
> Excel uses mainly standard keyboard commands. Tab or the arrow keys 
> move between cells. Control-c copies, control-v pastes, control-x 
> cuts. Control-g allows you to move to a specific cell. Control page up 
> and down moves between sheets. To edit the contents of a current cell, 
> use f2. The = sign will tell Excel you'd like to start typing a 
> formula, which can include cell coordinates, numbers, and other data.
> 
> JAWS has a command (control+shift+d) that will list all the cells with 
> data in a sheet.
> 
> I appreciate Excel looks intimidating at first, but it is fairly 
> straightforward. I'd be happy to jump on a Skype call if you need a 
> step-by-step walk-through, but I think it might be an idea to figure 
> out exactly what you'd like to do with the program and then we can go 
> from there.
> 
> Cheers,
> Sarah
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> Steve Jacobson via BlindMath
> Sent: April 4, 2018 1:08 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
> Cc: Steve Jacobson
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] data analysis question
> 
> Zhen,
> 
> I don't know if you have received other answers, but there are things 
> you can do with Excel and with JAWS that can make some of this easier.  
> First, though, I would say that it is well worth taking time to get 
> familiar with some of the less obvious parts of Excel so you can make the best use of it.
> Learning about some of its functions and how to enter formulas would 
> be a good start.
> 
> There are JAWS commands that can allow you to have row and column 
> titles repeated as you navigate by cell.  I used a similar function 
> with Window-Eyes and have seen the JAWS keys to do this but don't have 
> experience with this.  In addition, you can tell Excel to freeze 
> certain rows and columns so they always remain on the screen.  This 
> means that you could keep row labels and column headings on the screen 
> as you move around the spreadsheet.  You may actually find that this 
> is too much information, though, although I think there is an option 
> to just have a key to press to read the row or column label when you want that information.
> 
> There are excel options to sort and filter data which can help if you 
> get good at doing that.  Sorting on a particular column can quickly 
> show the smallest or largest.  Temporarily creating cells that can 
> receive results from a function in a formula can be useful as well.  
> Even knowing the minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation of 
> a given column of data can give you a pretty quick picture of the data.
> 
> I have not done the kinds of work you are describing, but I've had to 
> use Excel to deal with data on the job and know I've only scratched the surface.
> There are likely others here who could provide more details.  In 
> addition, if you get data in Excel, it is possible that you could 
> export it into a statistical package like R to do certain kinds of 
> analysis that might be done there more easily.  I have no experience with that.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Steve Jacobson
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> zhen holmes via BlindMath
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 11:53 AM
> To: nfb-science at nfbnet.org
> Cc: zhen holmes <zhen.m.holmes at gmail.com>; blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [BlindMath] data analysis question
> 
> Hi there,
> I was wondering about how to best access and manipulate data. Here's  
> the story. I have the opportunity to work on a really ml research 
> project involving presolar grains and aminoacid abundances. It would 
> involve mining data from papers, creating tables, and making new 
> plots. My question is how best to accomplish this. Some people I have 
> spoken to recommend excel, but I've heard its not very screen reader friendly in terms of reading data.
> When you are in a table, without being able  to know what row and 
> collum you are in, it would seem to me that the numbers would very 
> easily lose their meaning. Even so, if that is a good option, is there 
> a good list of jaws commands for excell? I haven't been able to find 
> one. Another suggestions was to utilize a reader to get a better 
> overview of the numbers and to start making extrapolations and to find 
> internal assumptions on my own. Obviously that doesn't solve all the 
> plotting problems, but it is something and would u simultaneously 
> solve the problem that pre 2002 papers aren't accessable to begin 
> with. At any rate, any suggestions would be welcomed. For the record, I will be posting this to both the math and science lists.
> thanks and best,
> Z H
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