[BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX

Thu Jul 30 04:24:32 UTC 2020

No idea about inserting audio, but insertion of png as image format in the HTML code is fairly common. Not sure it is recommended practice though. 
Use of external files for some content is advisable for access so that screen readers don' get clogged up trying to get past embedded content seems a fair trade off to me. I'd also note that the page still loads even if the files aren't all there.

HTH
Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Brandon Keith Biggs via BlindMath
Sent: Thursday, 30 July 2020 4:10 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX

Hello,
Problem with HTML:
can't insert images or audio files inside the document so you have one file. If you can, I would love to know how!

Epub solves this but...
Problems with Epub:
There is no native Epub reader on Windows.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 4:56 PM White, Jason J via BlindMath < blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> I am responding in support of Jonathan's central point that PDF should 
> not be assumed to be the desired output format nowadays. Not only, as 
> he notes, do some journals publish HTML alongside PDF, but the growing 
> use of modern digital publishing formats such as EPUB represents a 
> shift away from fixed-layout, page-based formats, and toward Web-based 
> delivery via HTML and CSS.
>
> The advantage of PDF is that it captures the exact typography and 
> layout of printed pages, just as Postscript did. It can also be viewed 
> on a wide variety of devices (screen displays as well as printers). 
> However, Web-based formats are better if you need to optimize the 
> layout for desktop as well as mobile reading without creating multiple 
> representations of the document - all you need are different style 
> rules for the different display types. I predict that there will be a 
> continuing shift toward Web formats as the primary publication medium.
> For now, as noted, I simply create parallel HTML and PDF. For my work, 
> I often need features that aren't readily available in Markdown, such 
> as cross-references and greater control over presentation, so I find 
> myself writing documents directly in LaTeX. However, I write some 
> simpler documents in Markdown, including presentation slides - 
> converted via Pandoc to HTML. Git repositories provide revision 
> control, and makefiles automate the document generation.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Godfrey, 
> Jonathan via BlindMath
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 6:44 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Godfrey, Jonathan <A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX
>
> Hello,
>
> Like Jason, I use HTML as my go-to format for maximising accessibility 
> of the content, including the mathematical stuff.
>
> One of the critical points for making anything accessible is the 
> amount of extra work required to do so. For many of the people making 
> material blind people are expected to use, this is just too hard at 
> present. There are notable exceptions though, including an increasing 
> number of publishers that are making their journal articles available 
> in HTML as well as the pdf. Publishers get a great return on their 
> investment in terms of the massive number of pages they process.
>
> I used to use LaTeX for most documents; I wrote my doctoral thesis and 
> many other long documents and several journal articles using LaTeX. 
> The only documents I use LaTeX for today though are done this way 
> because I'm still using content created ten years ago in one form or 
> another. I am converting the more useful content from back then into 
> more-friendly markdown to align with how I do my work today.
>
> There are a few things I loved about using LaTeX that aren't 
> particularly easy in markdown, but they are the last 5% of a document. 
> The effort required on the first 95% of content is considerably easier 
> to create in markdown as compared to LaTeX.
>
> I can still create the pdf from my markdown source because that 
> processing is done via conversion to a *.tex file first. I could of 
> course just convert to word or html and print to pdf from there, but 
> the reasons why people wanted pdf in the first place apply to HTML too, with one exception.
> Many pdf files were created so that people could not tamper with the 
> content or the presentation. It is possible to tamper if the user has 
> the right tools of course, but the basic consumer isn't going to do 
> that. The same is true for HTML which is consumed via a browser and 
> cannot be edited without use of a tool (sometimes part of the browser) 
> to view and alter the HTML source. The consumer does have quite a bit 
> of power to re-present the content in a form that suits them with font 
> size and full screen viewing being the two things sighted people in my world like to be doing.
>
> So, Bert's question is important to keep tabs on, but we should also 
> be asking why a format like the pdf (even if tagged) is actually what 
> we want in the end. I accept that might be the case, but is that 
> because we are asked to make a choice about which singular format the 
> world wants to have; we might say tagged pdf, but the implication is 
> that we cannot have multiple formats. The ability to produce multiple 
> formats was a hard problem ten years ago; I suggest that it is much less so today.
>
> Jonathan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of White, 
> Jason J via BlindMath
> Sent: Thursday, 30 July 2020 12:50 AM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: White, Jason J <jjwhite at ets.org>; Bert Van Landeghem < 
> b.vanlandeghem at sheffield.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX
>
> To the best of my knowledge, these packages are rather experimental at 
> the moment and require explicit manual tagging of the content using 
> LaTeX macros that generate the PDF structure tree. There's a mailing 
> list, and packages are under development, but they aren't at the point 
> of working on typical LaTeX documents without a lot of extra work on the author's part.
>
> What I normally do as a pragmatic solution is to generate an HTML 
> version alongside the PDF, using packages such as lwarp or TeX4HT. I 
> take the view that HTML of reasonable quality is more accessible, on 
> more platforms and devices, than tagged PDF is. My testing indicates 
> that only users of Adobe Reader under Windows would benefit from PDF 
> tagging anyway at the moment, and that it's simply ignored by other 
> PDF readers. So, unless you're writing for a publication that insists 
> on receiving tagged PDF, I would recommend generating HTML as your 
> accessible format. For example, you can write a makefile that keeps both the PDF and HTML versions up to date.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Bert Van 
> Landeghem via BlindMath
> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 6:24 AM
> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Bert Van Landeghem <b.vanlandeghem at sheffield.ac.uk>
> Subject: [BlindMath] Accessible PDFs from LaTeX
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> The content of a LateX document can be read with a braille display and 
> allows screenreader users to access the mathematical content. However, 
> the compiled output (such as PDFs) are generally not accessible if no 
> special attention is given to the issue. We then first think about the 
> formulae which cannot be read with a braille display, but these PDFs 
> are also not tagged at least if you use the standard packages. I know 
> that a lot has happened over the last years in this field, and that 
> several packages are available to tag PDFs and to make formulae 
> accessible in PDFs and other output formats. The only problem is that 
> I do not find a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art. Could 
> somebody point me to the most reliable and comprehensive packages that 
> are available in this field to date?
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Bert
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