[BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX

[Cristian Bernareggi]

Dear all,

Concerning accessible PDF from LaTex, I wish to inform you that
recently the research group of the Laboratory S. Polin (Department of
Mathematics, Turin) released the updated version of LaTeX package
"axessibility":
https://ctan.org/pkg/axessibility
This package allows to generate a PDF document where the formulae are
displayed as LaTeX in the PDF file.
So a screen reader can read the formulae either as LaTeX or in a more
natural way through a dictionary (dictionaries are available for JAWS
and NVDA). Moreover, it allows to generate some tagged structures,
however it does not generate fully tagged PDF/UA files. All the
details about usage and features of the package can be found in the
documentation or feel free to contact us at
accessibile.matematica at unito.it

best greetings

Cristian


On 29/07/2020, White, Jason J via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> To the best of my knowledge, these packages are rather experimental at the
> moment and require explicit manual tagging of the content using LaTeX macros
> that generate the PDF structure tree. There's a mailing list, and packages
> are under development, but they aren't at the point of working on typical
> LaTeX documents without a lot of extra work on the author's part.
>
> What I normally do as a pragmatic solution is to generate an HTML version
> alongside the PDF, using packages such as lwarp or TeX4HT. I take the view
> that HTML of reasonable quality is more accessible, on more platforms and
> devices, than tagged PDF is. My testing indicates that only users of Adobe
> Reader under Windows would benefit from PDF tagging anyway at the moment,
> and that it's simply ignored by other PDF readers. So, unless you're writing
> for a publication that insists on receiving tagged PDF, I would recommend
> generating HTML as your accessible format. For example, you can write a
> makefile that keeps both the PDF and HTML versions up to date.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Bert Van
> Landeghem via BlindMath
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 6:24 AM
> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Bert Van Landeghem <b.vanlandeghem at sheffield.ac.uk>
> Subject: [BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> The content of a LateX document can be read with a braille display and
> allows screenreader users to access the mathematical content. However, the
> compiled output (such as PDFs) are generally not accessible if no special
> attention is given to the issue. We then first think about the formulae
> which cannot be read with a braille display, but these PDFs are also not
> tagged at least if you use the standard packages. I know that a lot has
> happened over the last years in this field, and that several packages are
> available to tag PDFs and to make formulae accessible in PDFs and other
> output formats. The only problem is that I do not find a comprehensive
> overview of the state-of-the-art. Could somebody point me to the most
> reliable and comprehensive packages that are available in this field to
> date?
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Bert
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