[BlindMath] Low vision student wanting to hear math on a Mac

[Susan Kelmer]

I've been on this list for several years and read much of what you post, and have learned a lot.  I'm an alternate format provider for students at the University of Colorado, and I have a new problem and don't know how to help my student.

He is a math and computer science major with low vision and refuses to move to a Windows machine or to use a screen reader.  He has familiarity with Voiceover on his Mac.  He has some vision and has gotten through math in the past with enlargements, but he's reached a point in his college career where this is just not going to be enough.

I'm creating math-enabled files, that can be read easily on a Windows machine, but I'm not having any luck getting this to work on a Mac.  I've tried epub3, which works but doesn't read all the characters in an equation. I've tried just using a mathml file (I get a javascript error when I try to open it in Safari and then it opens the file but all the math is missing), I've tried straight-up word files with Mathtype.  Nothing is working.  I can't seem to adjust the verbosity settings on voiceover to anything but "all" or "some" but no fine tuning.  So while it reads the math it puts in a lot of extra stuff if I am using the "all" setting, and doesn't read the basics (like parenthesis) if I set it to "some."  I am creating all files in Word with Mathtype on a PC.

Any suggestions for me and my student?

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
University of Colorado Boulder
303-735-4836