[BlindMath] Please, more talk between blind math users and LaTeX developers

[Brandon Keith Biggs]

Hello,
Who are the LaTeX developers working on making tagged documents? I would
like to talk with them about their funding.
Thanks,


Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>


On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 11:53 PM Neil Soiffer via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Please bear in mind that money is also a factor. Those latex developers who
> work on latex do it on their own time. They have had a few donations, but
> nowhere near enough to fund a full time position, let alone several
> positions. AFAIK, those estimates were based on their current ability to do
> work. They recently got funding from Adobe and I believe that will allow at
> least one person to work full time on this (maybe it was two people) and
> that they expect substantial progress on tagging this year, and maybe math
> support the following year.
>
> I hope I'm accurately describing the current situation and not letting my
> optimism influence my memory. I expect to help out in what little way I
> can, especially for the math tagging, and will know more late in the month.
> I will update the list with their current status and plans at that point.
>
> Neil Soiffer
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 7:27 PM Tony Malykh via BlindMath <
> blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > Thanks for working on this. I did my own investigation a while ago and I
> > came to a similar conclusion that this is largely a social problem. Very
> > interesting document about timeline of Latex to tagged PDF development.
> > Although it seems almost ridiculously slow: spend 3 years and looks like
> > that won't even tag the actual math content. But still good to know that
> > they are working on that.
> >
> > Please let me know if you need any social support to push on this - like
> > write an email/petition to latex developers - I myself work in ML and I
> > am heavily affected by lack of accessible PDFs in ML conferences. I can
> > probably also find a couple of more blind ML devs who would hopefully
> > agree to push jointly.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Tony
> >
> >
> > On 3/3/2021 7:46 AM, Jonathan Fine via BlindMath wrote:
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > This is about improving communication between blind math students and
> > > support staff on the one side and the LaTeX developers on the other.
> > >
> > > I'll be brief. Kellee Sanchez's request for help started a discussion
> > which
> > > I found to be very good. It covers many interlinked topics. It will
> take
> > me
> > > some time to digest and understand. I'm learning so much from this
> > > discussion.
> > >
> http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/2021-March/009702.html
> > >
> > > I'm a long-time TeX user. I'd like the developers there, particularly
> > those
> > > focussed on accessible PDF and on TeX-to-HTML (or XML), to similarly
> > learn
> > > from this discussion. To make this discussion more accessible to them
> and
> > > others, I'll summarize it in posts on my blog.
> > > https://jfine2358.github.io/
> > >
> > > I think there's a real social problem. TeX users care about typography.
> > > Blind people can't see typography. TeX users love PDF. Blind people, it
> > > seems to me, love accessible HTML. Blind students need accessible
> > material
> > > during the course. TeX developers think long term.
> > >
> > > This need not be a problem. We all care about communication and
> > usability.
> > > We have shared interests and values. The social problem I see is that
> > there
> > > are too few connections between these two communities.
> > >
> > > Let's have more sharing between the people on the Blind Math mailing
> list
> > > and the developers on the LaTeX project. This conversation can help
> both
> > > sides.
> > >
> > > The LaTeX developers hope to produce tagged PDF no sooner than 4 years
> > from
> > > now, with math support to follow later. For math support they need to
> > > extract and store the TeX source for the equations.  Achieving this
> LaTeX
> > > developer goal will I'm sure help blind math users.
> > >
> >
> https://www.latex-project.org/publications/2020-tagged-pdf-feasibility.pdf
> > >
> > > Let's make progress by talking more with each other. And working
> together
> > > when we can.
> > >
> > > with best wishes
> > >
> > > Jonathan
> > >
> > > This message sent to:
> > >
> > > Blind Math mailing list
> > > TUG accessibility mailing list
> > > TUG texhax list
> > > LaTeX3 mailing list
> > > LaTeX team email address
> > > TUG members
> > > UK TUG members
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