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

[Sina Bahram]

Susan,

It's not fair, but sometimes we need to use the right tool for the job.
Currently, a Mac is simply the wrong tool for reading and exploring
mathematics. Your student needs to understand this. Is the resistance from a
lack of understanding, a resistance to change, or something else? They may
be asked to learn different platforms in an eventual job as well, so they
should start now when they arguably have more free-time and resources to
help them, such as yourself.

They can do their email, games, and whatever else they like on their Mac,
but Windows provides you NVDA, and NVDA+MathPlayer gets you excellent speech
and Braille for the mathematics encoded as you have described.

They don't even need to change their hardware, necessarily, as they could
run Windows inside of a VM on their Mac, thereby taking advantage of both
worlds.

If they are unwilling to change, then I wish you both luck, and know that
you can't always convince folks to use the right solution, even when you try
all sorts of rational and emotional arguments. Try not to take that too
hard, as it's out of your control.

Thanks for what you do, by the way, it makes a huge impact in people's
lives.

Take care,
Sina

President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.
Phone: 919-345-3832
https://www.PAC.bz
Twitter: @SinaBahram
Personal Website: https://www.sinabahram.com

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer via
BlindMath
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2019 12:36 PM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Cc: Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>
Subject: [BlindMath] Low vision student wanting to hear math on a Mac

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

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