[BlindMath] Zoom meeting on accessible math: Thu 11 Feb 6:30 to 7:30 UK time

Sun Feb 7 01:01:38 UTC 2021

Hello,

I suspect the way to get the accessibility tools into common use is to make sure they are built into the system in such a way that no one has to do anything to implement them.

At present, every access solution requires the author of the LaTeX (or their editor) to do additional tasks. The more onerous these tasks are, the less likely we will have success. On top of that, if the "solutions" turn out not to be solutions but instead just create other problems, then they are doomed.

This is why I favour an HTML solution. Evidence suggests that the main producers of massive quantities of print are also realising that HTML offers an easier way to deliver content to the sighted world, let alone the relatively trivial audience of mathematically competent blind people. Most publishers now use HTML in addition to the pdf version of journal articles, and in my experience, an increasing number are using either MathML or MathJax.

We still have tens of thousands of printed pages that may not see the light of HTML day. I believe that this is becoming less and less of an issue except for the people who need to read that archive, being mostly postgraduate students and academics.

The availability of books, particularly textbooks, in HTML will pose an ongoing problem. I am somewhat fortunate that the best resources in my field are now being produced in pdf for the one-off thing called the print edition, but also in a living form freely available in HTML.

The last time I needed something that wasn’t in one of these living books, the Wikipedia pages on the subject were there to rescue me. Again, they're in HTML with the original source code now producing screen reader friendly formulae. Ten years ago, these same pages were offering up these same formulae in image formats and the original LaTeX source as the alt tag.

I did put energy into finding the tools to help me build in the access I wanted from documents I had written up using LaTeX. I've given up developing pretty much every document I ever started in LaTeX and moved everything over to an HTML solution because I'm onto a winner with HTML and I've wasted enough energy on losers already.

The thing that continues to frustrate me is the persistent belief that presenting a pdf document with accessibility features is the desired outcome. I think people want access to the content, not the pain that comes with the inadequacies of the best pdf has to offer today. My sighted students moan about the staff that give them pdf documents. "We can't find anything", "There are too many documents to pick from", "it doesn't look good on my tablet/phone", etc.

So, I ask who or what is it that we are wanting to change?

Please note, I'm not anti-LaTeX. There are plenty of tools that will turn many LaTeX documents into quite useful HTML. None of them is perfect though. I used TeX4HT more than anything else because it made nice mathematical content. My use of it was absolutely useless when it came time to decent labelling of images but I was finding a (complicated) work around. That just got too onerous to continue with though, especially once I found that it was all sorted out by markdown.

Jonathan G

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tony Malykh via BlindMath
Sent: Sunday, 7 February 2021 1:07 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Tony Malykh <anton.malykh at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Zoom meeting on accessible math: Thu 11 Feb 6:30 to 7:30 UK time

I did my own little investigation into this a while ago. Here is my understanding. I'll be happy if anyone corrects me if any of my points are not valid.
1. Tex was invented like in  1960s - and they had no idea about accessibility back then. Tex is really just the engine, and there are tons of packages written on top of that engine. Neither the engine, nor the packages were written with accessibility in mind.
2. There appear to have been some efforts to introduce Tex PDF accessibility. For example, see:
     *
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/550511/what-is-the-best-package-for-accessibility-tagging/550523#550523
     * https://github.com/karel-brinda/tex-accessibility
     * https://github.com/integr-abile/axessibility
However, these packages seem to suffer from one common problem: they break visual layout  except for the simplest cases. That's the reason why conferences don't use this package.
3. In order to have a working accessibility Latex package, it appears that you need to make changes to nearly every otehr Latex package to make it to work with accessibility package. The number of tex packages that are widely used is enormous, therefore therethere's enormous amount of work to be done with no one to pay for, and let's be honest - with marginal benefits - there are not too many blind people in the world willing to read math papers.
4. I also stumbled upon the discussion with one of ML conference organizers (couldn't find a link now), and it seems like they were willing to work in that direction, that is enforce all the papers to be accessible, as long as there is a working accessibility package.
So my conclusion was that Latex PDF accessibility is not likely to be a reality in the nearby future. Even if NFB or any other blindness-related group forms an advocacy group to push for accessible Latex PDFs, it still feels unlikely  that widespread accessibility could be achieved, primarily becuase of complexity of the system.
Too bad. Again, hope someone can correct me.
--Tony

On 2/6/2021 7:10 AM, Petr Pařízek via BlindMath wrote:
> Jonathan wrote:
>
>
> <<<<<
>
> Many teachers use LaTeX for course materials. I'd like to have 
> real-world
>
>> examples of LaTeX math, and accessibility problems and solutions. 
>> Please send to this list or to me privately as you wish.
>> >>>>>
>
>
> Recently, someone has told me that out of the many existing TeX to PDF 
> converters out there, there doesn't seem to be such one that would be 
> able to label the math expressions with corresponding alternative text 
> in the PDF document. Sadly, I'm unable to verify whether this is 
> indeed the case or whether labeling graphics with alternative text is 
> somehow problematic in PDF documents. If alternative text is no 
> problem in formats like HTML, then I have no idea why it should be a 
> problem in PDF. And if it is not a question of issues with alternative 
> text itself, then I wonder why the converters can't use it for 
> labeling the math expressions properly (which are actually stored as 
> graphics). Honestly, I'd love to know myself what the answer to the 
> question is but I don't know anyone who knows enough both about the 
> actual PDF format and about the available TeX to PDF converters and 
> who could indeed give me the answer.
>
> Petr
>
>
>

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