[BlindMath] Resources For Composing Accessible Research Papers

Thu Jan 19 16:10:44 UTC 2023

In addition, tagged PDF is poorly supported in PDF reading applications. 
Adobe Reader under Microsoft Windows is the only implementation I am 
aware of that at least somewhat works.

So, if the recipient isn't a Windows user, or if they are, but they 
access the PDF file in another reading application, such as that 
included in the browser - then it will be as though the tagging didn't 
exist so far as the user's experience is concerned.

On 17/1/23 17:21, Brandon Keith Biggs via BlindMath wrote:
> Hello,
> 1. PDFs are slow to open and often crash the viewer.
> 2. PDFs can't show math.
> 3. It's so difficult to make a correctly tagged PDF, it almost never
> happens in the real world, even from governments who have section 508.
> 4. There isn't really a good pdf viewer that allows you to accessibly take
> notes.
> 5. If you want to show interactive application demos in JavaScript, PDF
> doesn't allow that.
> 6. If you want to show videos, PDF doesn't allow that.
> 7. If you want to manually edit the internal code, PDF is really not meant
> for that.
> 8. For low vision users, PDFs don't allow for complex sizing and color
> manipulations.
>
> PDFs are at the bottom of my document preference list. Epub and HTML are so
> much better because they do everything above, as well as everything PDFs
> can do.
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 11:25 AM Bhavya shah via BlindMath <
> blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear Jonathan,
>>
>> Thanks for your detailed inputs! One question I have always had is
>> about the accessibility of the PDF format. If made correctly, are
>> accessible, well-tagged PDFs as good as accessible HTML? If not, what
>> are the structural features inherent to PDF files that make them less
>> preferable than alternatives like Word or HTML?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> On 1/11/23, Jonathan Godfrey via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> Hello Bhavya,
>>>
>>> The vast majority of research papers and other academic works are
>> drafted in
>>> either MS Word or a form of LaTeX. I'll save my evangelism on the merits
>> of
>>> markdown for another day.
>>>
>>> Reading MS Word articles and improving their accessibility is
>>> well-documented elsewhere so I won't pretend to have any expertise
>> worthy of
>>> sharing. I haven't opened a new Word document since 2015 (perhaps
>> earlier)
>>> except to test a specific feature relating to access. I must consume
>> content
>>> written by people who like to suffer MS products often of course, and
>> they
>>> must get sick of me demanding the docx file instead of the pdf they
>> chose to
>>> make just so that I can read the content.
>>>
>>>
>>> Most authors drafting their work in LaTeX generate a pdf and this is
>> what I
>>> will have to admit, irritates me to distraction. There is little
>> stopping an
>>> author from generating HTML in addition to the pdf except their own
>>> ignorance. The proliferation of pdf over the last twenty-five years
>> (before
>>> that we used post-script files not pdf) exists because the tools to
>> create
>>> pdf are at the fingertips of the authors. The editor software they have
>>> gives them a button to click; generating HTML is as simple for any author
>>> using 20th century techniques and today's software. In the really old
>> days,
>>> we used to process our documents using command line instructions. We
>> would
>>> quite literally type `latex mywork.tex` and wait for it to do its stuff.
>>> That command became `pdflatex mywork.tex` but there has been another
>> command
>>> `htlatex mywork.tex` in the standard miktex distributions for well over a
>>> decade. This last command generates quite tolerable HTML but some
>>> improvements can be made to split long works into multiple pages with
>>> navigation links etc.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately though, generating HTML is not sufficient to provide
>> access.
>>> Adding alt text tags for example requires effort from the author, use of
>> an
>>> additional package to handle that effort and therefore is bound to drop
>> down
>>> the priority list.
>>>
>>> I find the notion of adding alt tags via post-hoc manual labour to be
>>> abhorrent, but I do understand why this practice is necessary. In the
>> end,
>>> this practice makes access the problem of someone else, not the author.
>>> There is a massive industry in adding the access into such documents, and
>>> the perpetrators of the inaccessibility are not the ones paying for the
>>> problems they create (albeit unwittingly).
>>>
>>> An excellent resource worth sharing is the www.arxiv.org e-print archive
>>> with its complementary www.ar5iv.org repository of the same works in
>> HTML.
>>> The team at arXiv have seriously taken notice of the needs of this
>> community
>>> in recent times and one day soon, authors will have to proof their HTML
>>> versions in addition to the dreaded pdf.
>>> Directing your interested academics to these efforts may well prove the
>> most
>>> expedient way of getting the necessary messages across. The team has
>>> produced a report on its efforts that I found well worth a read, and not
>>> just because I was quoted therein 😊.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Bhavya shah
>> via
>>> BlindMath
>>> Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2023 8:59 am
>>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>>> <Blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>> Cc: Bhavya shah <bhavya.shah125 at gmail.com>
>>> Subject: [BlindMath] Resources For Composing Accessible Research Papers
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> What resources can I share with researchers who may be interested in
>>> improving the accessibility of their publications? I can point out simple
>>> things like alt text for graphs and figures, but I wonder if there are
>> more
>>> comprehensive yet highly practical guides (covering things like, say, PDF
>>> tagging) for researchers seeking to make their work accessible. This
>>> question isn't strictly about Math research, but I ask it here since
>> visual
>>> representations of data are a decent component of what makes research
>> papers
>>> across disciplines inaccessible.
>>>
>>> I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or inputs!
>>>
>>> Kind Regards,
>>> Bhavya
>>>
>>> --
>>> Kind Regards,
>>> Bhavya Shah
>>> B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Science | Stanford '24
>>> LinkedIn:
>>>
>> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fbhavyashah125%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ca.j.godfrey%40massey.ac.nz%7C9630bc36df224834512508daf40e7bac%7C388728e1bbd0437898dcf8682e644300%7C1%7C0%7C638090640306445069%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2BRaqVSasFTc8oyakOW5x5iHErA%2FFH7R2g8OwY1e3Pg0%3D&reserved=0
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> BlindMath mailing list
>>> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
>>>
>> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnfbnet.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fblindmath_nfbnet.org&data=05%7C01%7Ca.j.godfrey%40massey.ac.nz%7C9630bc36df224834512508daf40e7bac%7C388728e1bbd0437898dcf8682e644300%7C1%7C0%7C638090640306445069%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=PU3ElS47%2Bi%2F9g5cYKV8wHZDWZtnKEwN32dXRW2Wzxp8%3D&reserved=0
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> BlindMath:
>>>
>> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnfbnet.org%2Fmailman%2Foptions%2Fblindmath_nfbnet.org%2Fa.j.godfrey%2540massey.ac.nz&data=05%7C01%7Ca.j.godfrey%40massey.ac.nz%7C9630bc36df224834512508daf40e7bac%7C388728e1bbd0437898dcf8682e644300%7C1%7C0%7C638090640306445069%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=UF7jGVwMs4gfc5ZhZBzgBx2y48hr2Drs9f7mvkhGp%2Bs%3D&reserved=0
>>> BlindMath Gems can be found at
>>> <
>> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blindscience.org%2Fblindmath-gems-home&data=05%7C01%7Ca.j.godfrey%40massey.ac.nz%7C9630bc36df224834512508daf40e7bac%7C388728e1bbd0437898dcf8682e644300%7C1%7C0%7C638090640306445069%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=nwb8DdPQXOPxQXvS%2BKwRK7VQraa0YjtFDd7HFhFrxk0%3D&reserved=0
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> BlindMath mailing list
>>> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> BlindMath:
>>>
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/bhavya.shah125%40gmail.com
>>> BlindMath Gems can be found at
>>> <http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Kind Regards,
>> Bhavya Shah
>> B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Science | Stanford '24
>> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavyashah125/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> BlindMath mailing list
>> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> BlindMath:
>>
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/brandonkeithbiggs%40gmail.com
>> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
>> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindMath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/jason%40jasonjgw.net
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>