[BlindMath] Areas still to work on?

[Michael Whapples]

On the LaTeX verbosity issue:

* For LaTeX expressions you find yourself writing again and again you 
could always use macros. The disadvantage it may make it more difficult 
for others to read your LaTeX as they will not be familiar with your 
macros. However that would apply to your custom shorthand notation in 
any other code.

* As an alternative to LaTeX I really quite like ASCIIMath. Admittedly 
it does come short in certain areas, but for the most common stuff it is 
adequate and for those advanced cases where it is not enough LaTeX 
probably is not such a burden.


Michael Whapples

On 31/05/2026 23:03, avery ingram via BlindMath wrote:
> I think everyone on here has made a lot of great points and had interesting perspectives. I wish I knew a lot more about the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Maybe we could get together and make a blog or resource guide about that. In the meantime, would someone mind explaining some of this to me?
>
> Besides when I had to use computer Braille when I was a kid, because nothing supported Nemeth, I've always used Nemeth for everything. When my BrailleNote Apex stopped working, I tried to find something that could replace it, but everything seemed to have significant problems. For example, if you used shorthand on the BrailleSense 6, those lines of math would completely disappear. It seemed like there wasn't a way to edit math in JAWS and read the math at the same time. MathML and LaTeX seem to require so much extra code, and don't allow for shorthand, although I didn't consider making a separate program to facilitate that. AI could be extraordinarily helpful, but it wouldn't work in situations where professors say it isn't allowed. How do all of you make these other approaches work? I used to be able to write math like calculus almost as fast as a sighted person when I had my BrailleNote, but I don't know how you all do it.
>
> I wonder if we could write a blog post for each type of code, notetaker…etc, and mention all the pros and cons it has. That could make it easier for people to make an informed choice about what path to take. I'm also excited to try out notetakers and other devices that automatically convert Nemeth to codes like MathML, and to see whether they show up on a monitor in realtime.
>
> Thank you all for contributing. I think it's great that so many of us want to help each other in such an important area.
>
> Best,
>
> Avery
>
> On May 30, 2026, at 10:08 PM, Sukriti Suri via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> In my opinion, typing mathematics is still an area needing refinement. Latex though accessible is combersum and time-taking. While typing through a braille display, UEB can transcribe everything else but spatial symbols like fractions and subscripts. Softwares taking input in Nemeth are still not many and even I wonder if there are any.
> Thanks
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