[BlindMath] [blindmath at nfbnet.org: Re: TeX accessibility project]

Mon May 28 04:12:28 UTC 2018

Hi Boris, and Brandon,

On May 28, 2018, at 7:58 AM, Boris Veytsman <borisv at lk.net<mailto:borisv at lk.net>> wrote:

Hi, Ross

here are some comments from blindmath list. I wonder whether you
might want to subscribe!

Yes.
I signed up this morning.

From: Brandon Keith Biggs via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] TeX accessibility project
Date: May 28, 2018 at 7:28:03 AM GMT+10
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>
Cc: Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com<mailto:brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com>>
Reply-To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>

Hello Boris,
This needs to happen so bad thank you for starting!
A couple comments:
1. Using NVDA with MathPlayer, I was not able to read the math content in:
https://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~ross/TaggedPDF/Week13-2017-with-solutions.pdf

The mathematics here is not tagged for MathML, so doesn’t use MathPlayer to the
extent that is possible.
Instead, there is  /Alt  text, that is meant to be the substitute for the PDF content
of the mathematical expressions.
That  /Alt  text should be the actual LaTeX source coding, in most cases.

This document is compliant with the  PDF/UA-1 standard.
Generating MathML tagging is a much harder problem,
and not required unless PDF/UA-2 conformance is desired, with PDF 2.0.
We are not aiming for this latter compliance yet, though that will be an aim for the future.

2. The model PDF:
https://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~ross/TaggedPDF/AustMS-2017-poster-UA.pdf
Has a link that is blank.

Sorry, I don’t know what you mean by a “blank” link here.
There are meant to be 2 hyperlinks within that document.
Both are down in the smallish print near the bottom of the page.
Both seem to be there, when I hover the mouse over the active regions,
and are certainly present in the PDF content,
with corresponding Annotations and /Link  tagging.

So please be more specific about what you think is wrong or missing;
saying what gives you the indication of something being incomplete.

I’m fully sighted, and not using Assisstive Technology, but Adobe’s Acrobat Reader and Pro software.
So a screen-shot, or other kind of snippet detailing what you encounter, would be most helpful
if it is possible to do that.

Frankly, the basic export of a paper renders the PDF unreadable at the

I’m sorry, what do you mean by “basic export”?
>From what software are you exporting and why?  What version, what year?
Does it claim to read Tagged PDF?
Does it claim to support PDF/UA?

moment, so that is what I would like to see fixed first. Spaces in pdflatex
don't always show up, soyougetconetntlikethis.

This shouldn’t be happening with the PDFs that I’ve created;
so if it is then I need to know more about the software you are using.
Care has been taken to re-insert space characters between words
— but they occur using a non-standard font.

If that is not what you are encountering, then I’d like to know:
 * is it happening throughout the whole document?
 * or just in a few places — please be specific about just where.
Or is this comment meant to be about  pdflatex  generally,
rather than the documents accessed from my site?

     http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~ross/TaggedPDF/

I would be happy to read and comment on PDFs.

That’s great to hear, and much appreciated.

My aim is to create PDFs according to the published ISO standards, in order to
satisfy Accessibility requirements. In my examples I can achieve validation
using Adobe’s Preflight tool. But if that is not actually giving a useable PDF
for you, I need more details about just what you encounter, and why it seems
to be inadequate.

Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/6SDqCGv0Z6fk7WOUKTgOY?domain=brandonkeithbiggs.com>

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 1:53 PM, Boris Veytsman via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>> wrote:

Greetings

I am Boris Veytsman, the current president of TeX Users Group,
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/hcFsCJyBZ6tZJpAUGnXhQ?domain=tug.org, the non-profit society of the users of TeX, LaTeX,
Metafont and related systems.  Many subscribers of this list probably
dealt with math papers typeset with TeX.

I would like to tell the subscribers of this list about our current
project of enabling TeX to produce tagged PDF suitable for screen
readers.  Here is the Web page for the working group:
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/bWO9CK1DOrCOo8MU3g9ym?domain=tug.org.   We have a mailing list at
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/vSThCL7Eg9fKWNwSmUh9w?domain=tug.org.

Recently we published our work plan
(https://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~ross/TaggedPDF/PDF-standards-v2.pdf) and
examples of tagged PDF
(https://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~ross/TaggedPDF/).  We would be
absolutely glad to hear your commments and suggestions.  Please
contact me if you want to help.

--
Good luck

-Boris

All the best, and hope to hear from more people on this list.

Dr Ross Moore

Mathematics Dept | 12 Wally’s Walk, 734
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

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M:+61 407 288 255<tel:%2B61%20409%20125%20670>  |  E: ross.moore at mq.edu.au<mailto:rick.minter at mq.edu.au>

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