[BlindMath] Eq To LaTeX, a new math translation program using MathPix

[Bert Van Landeghem]

Dear Amanda,

Many thanks for sharing your experiences, for your efforts to convince
people to make the conversion process more accessible, and for sharing the
link to the software. I will definitely give it a try. I actually just
converted a 20-page PDF file with Mathpix using the webbased tool (20 pages
is the maximum per month in the educational free version) and it worked
quite well. But it would be good to be able to do it from your desktop as
well.

Kind regards,
Bert


On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 00:26, Amanda Lacy via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> I'm writing to this list because I could use your help improving a new
> math access tool.
>
> I recently tried to use MathPix to read some math homework, and was
> completely unsuccessful. The Mac version had unlabeled buttons, and the web
> version also had accessibility problems. When I contacted MathPix they
> responded, but I don't think they ever fixed anything. I was unable to use
> this software at all as a blind student.
>
> So, I convinced a team of senior software engineering undergrads to take
> on math translation as their capstone project. The resulting Python
> software, Eq To LaTeX (https://github.com/TOneal419/Eq_to_LaTeX),  uses
> MathPix to translate PDF files into LaTeX, and attempts to simplify the
> LaTeX equations to make them easier to read. Importantly, the software is
> fully accessible and easy to use on Windows machines (I tested it).
>
> I notice that if I were to uncomment just one line of code, the program
> would also output the original LaTeX file. This would be extremely useful,
> since that way we could translate the LaTeX to any other format we wanted.
> The simplified LaTeX that the students chose is sort of English-like, which
> is not necessarily what you want if your goal is to translate to Nemeth or
> some other code. I tried rebuilding the software myself, but it requires a
> file with an API key for MathPix. I could use experienced help in fixing
> this small problem so then we could have an accessible roseta stone for
> math. If you think you can help, please join/clone, and let me know.
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