[BlindMath] data analysis question

Sabra Ewing sabra1023 at gmail.com
Thu Apr 5 01:56:43 UTC 2018 

It is very screen reader friendly, but I agree that it is difficult to find a good tutorial that you do not have to pay for. I have also found the Microsoft tutorials to be difficult to follow. 

Sabra Ewing

> On Apr 4, 2018, at 6:08 PM, Ken Perry via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 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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