[BlindMath] Beamer PDF Accessibility

Wed Nov 12 23:13:55 UTC 2025

Dear Jonathan,

I agree with LaTeX code being cumbersome to read, and notation can be
inconsistent as people are using different packages and lay-out. However,
reading maths with screenreaders in HTML is still rather experimental,
either. As you know, there are various types of Braille math around the
world. In JAWS, you need to have contracted Braille activated to be able to
read your formula in Braille. If you do not read contracted Braille, you do
not get maths displayed on the braille display. Reading long formula
through the speech output is cumbersome as well. I am confident that we
will see progress in these areas.

Kind regards,
Bert

On Wed, 12 Nov 2025 at 22:55, Jonathan Godfrey via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> As a person who has been critical of LaTeX to pdf alone as a workflow, for
> a decade or more, I think I should comment that a serious commitment to
> generating pdf that is accessible is being worked on.
>
> To meet my criteria, the process will not be accessible until every
> document created from LaTeX source is born accessible, without the author
> needing to do anything relating to extra packages or even knowledge of what
> makes a document accessible.
>
> That is, no post-processing of documents by supposed experts in
> accessibility.
>
> A pdf generated by LaTeX cannot meet my expectations, no matter if it is a
> slide deck, article,  or something else until the process of making it
> accessible is entirely embedded in the processing of all LaTeX documents.
>
> That means you must get the source files.
>
> I follow  process like that suggested by Bert if I have to work with a
> legacy LaTeX document. FWIW, I use markdown instead of LaTeX until I must
> meet someone's publishing constraints, at which point my markdown gets
> pushed into a tex file and processed as per the publisher's requests.
>
>
> I do not think a blind  student should have to read raw LaTeX code. The
> ways we write source code in LaTeX is far from consistent and frequently
> lazy. Generation into HTML either by pandoc or another process is much
> smarter.
>
> All the best,
> Jonathan
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Caitlin
> McKeown via BlindMath
> Sent: Thursday, 13 November 2025 10:32 am
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Caitlin McKeown <cjmckeow at ncsu.edu>
> Subject: [BlindMath] Beamer PDF Accessibility
>
> 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
>
>
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