[BlindMath] Beamer PDF Accessibility

[Bert Van Landeghem]

Dear Caitlin,

I also write my slides in LaTeX Beamer. When I upload slides, I upload the
inaccessible PDF alongside an accessible HTML format.

I produce the HTML file with Pandoc, using a command like:
pandoc -s lecture2.tex -o lecture2.html --embed-resources --standalone
--mathjax

This creates just one file with all graphs embedded. IN HTML one can also
add ALT tags to figures.

(Personally, as a screenreader user, I would prefer to get access to the
.tex source code.)

I know that one is working on creating accessible PDFs from LaTeX, but as
far as I am aware these solutions are in an experimental stage.

Kind regards,
Bert



On Wed, 12 Nov 2025 at 21:33, Caitlin McKeown via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I am wondering if anyone has any experience, suggestions, or templates for
> making Beamer PDFs accessible?
>
> For a little background, I work at a university and nearly all of our math
> and statistics faculty use Beamer to produce their lecture slides. For
> those (like me) who are unfamiliar with Beamer, it is a program used to
> convert LaTeX directly into presentation slides in PDF format. These slides
> are generated directly from LaTeX so all of the underlying code and text is
> there, but the output format from Beamer is a completely untagged PDF.
> Because of all of the math notation, remediating the slides with Acrobat is
> less than ideal, and feels like a step backwards when the LaTeX already
> exists. Our faculty would prefer either a different process or a different
> tool to make their content accessible using the LaTeX code they have
> already written.
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
> Caitlin
>
> --
>
> Caitlin McKeown, Ph.D.
>
> Senior Instructional Designer
>
> Digital Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA)
>
> cjmckeow at ncsu.edu
>
> delta.ncsu.edu
>
>
> NC State University
>
> Campus Box 7113
>
> Center for Technology and Innovation
>
> 1010 Main Campus Drive
> Raleigh, NC 27695
>
>
> *All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are
> sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records
> Law and may be disclosed to third parties. *
> _______________________________________________
> 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/b.vanlandeghem%40sheffield.ac.uk
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>