[BlindMath] Understanding spoken mathematical output

Sat Apr 23 14:42:39 UTC 2022

First of all, I suggest that you use Firefox because there is a Chrome bug that causes some garbled math speech on any page that uses MathJax to serve the math (which is probably the case in 98% of web pages containing math).

Secondly, you may find it useful to switch to a different speech style in the MathPlayer settings until you find a reading which makes a bit more sense. For instance, The "Clear Speak" style is more like a teacher might read an expression in class. On the other hand, the "MathSpeak" style was developed based on Abraham Nemeth's model of how to read math which closely follows the Nemeth braille code. Another helpful thing is walk through the expression by using the NVDA+Alt+m command to enter the math navigation mode, which lets you use the up/down and left/right arrow keys to navigate inside an expression and get finer details.

Here are some directions for changing the speech style...

Changing MathPlayer Speech Settings in Windows 10
These are directions based on using the NVDA screen reader. These directions only address changing the speech style. For a complete description of all the different MathPlayer settings, see MathPlayer Settings Dialogue on the Wiris Website<https://docs.wiris.com/en/mathplayer/start#mathplayer_settings_dialog>.
Steps for checking or resetting the speech style setting

  1.  Press the Windows button on the keyboard
  2.  Type “Control Panel” in the search window and hit enter
  3.  The last step should put you into a new search window; type “MathPlayer” and hit enter
  4.  NVDA doesn't announce anything to tell me that new content was on the screen, but if you press tab you will get to the MathPlayer settings app; press enter
  5.  You should now be in the MathPlayer settings menu. It will start out in the “Speech” tab, which is where you need to be. Tab through the interface until you get to the “Speech Style” combo box. Use the down and up arrow keys to select from 3 different possible styles of speech.
  6.  After confirming the speech style you want is selected, tab down to the “Apply” button and press enter
  7.  NVDA responds “unavailable” at this point because the apply button gets grayed out after the setting change has been made.
  8.  You can now escape out of the MathPlayer menu, and then close the Control Panel window
  9.  The setting changes you make should stay in effect until you change them again.

This assumes you have the MathPlayer add-on installed on your PC. It does not apply if you are only using the Access8Math add-on. If you don't already have MathPlayer you can download the add-on from https://docs.wiris.com/en/mathplayer/start#installing_and_uninstalling_mathplayer

Hope that helps,

--Steve Noble
steve.noble at louisville.edu
502-969-3088
________________________________
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Saman via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2022 3:03 AM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Saman <s.alovver at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Understanding spoken mathematical output

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Dear Pranav,
  I usually find Latex formatting to be quite  handy here.  You can
directly convert this page into Latex using Pandoc.   But as far as I
know usually if there are no signs between terms you can regard it as
multiply.  In this case one half times A times DeltaT squared.
Regards

2022-04-23 7:30 GMT+04:30, Pranav Lal via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>:
> Hi all,
>
>
> I occasionally need to  read math. This is primarily for my own interest.
> However, what I am finding is that I am unable to fully comprehend what
> NVDA
> is telling me. Take the following equation.
>   x  =    x  sub  0    +    v  sub  0    Delta  t  +    1  over  2    a
> Delta    t  squared
> What is going on here? Is there a tutorial that gets me familiar with how
> to
> interpret NVDA's output? The site I got this equation from is
> https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kalmanfilter.net%2Fdefault.aspx&data=05%7C01%7Csteve.noble%40louisville.edu%7C643118e854f846e2859a08da24f792a7%7Cdd246e4a54344e158ae391ad9797b209%7C0%7C0%7C637862943450960032%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=r9w9F1VjGOCKpojAz4hrOz4cjmirOq9lmA9Hjlbkx8s%3D&reserved=0
>
> The equations are accessible so I can read them without a problem.
>
> Pranav
>
>
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