[BlindMath] Tips for authoring accessible math/STEM

[Neil Soiffer]

The LaTeX project has been working on adding tagging to PDFs so that
"pdftex" produces an accessible PDF. NVDA 2025.1 will support accessible
math in PDF and JAWS is working towards that also. However, one can convert
the PDF doc to HTML (w/MathML for the math) via ngpdf. To get tagged PDF in
a current version of pdftex, a few lines of boilerplate needs to be added
to the start of the document. Many legacy LaTeX documents can be made
accessible this way also. Not all latex packages are supported at the
moment, but the common ones are.

An example that can be modified and run is at
https://latex3.github.io/tagging-project/documentation/wtpdf-from-latex.
After clicking on "Generate Tagged PDF", you can then click on "Download
PDF"  or if you want to see an HTML page, click on "Open as derived HTML at
ngPDF". The URL is meant to explain how to generate accessible PDF and to
make it easy to play around with the LaTeX and check the accessibility. If
you want to do real work, make sure you have an up-to-date version of
latex/pdftex on your computer and use that.

Neil Soiffer

On Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 5:49 PM Romack, Justin via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Howdy all!
>
> I’m getting an increasing number of requests to develop accessible math
> content – but even more interest for our faculty to develop accessible
> versions of their own content. Woohoo!
>
> But here’s where I’m stuck: What would you recommend when authors are
> using LaTeX and want their output to offer accessible markup for blind/VI
> and other AT users?
>
> Most of this work will be done to avoid PDFs in general and many of our
> faculty use Canvas – but I want solutions that can support Canvas
> environments as well as individual faculty websites, distributable
> documents, etc.
>
> What advice would you offer?
>
> Grateful to each of you!
>
> Take good care,
> J
>
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> Justin Romack, Assistant Director
> Disability Resources | Division of Student Affairs
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