Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Bookshare and math equations (self.Blind)
submitted by YoYo31415
Can someone tell me how to find accessible math texts on bookshare? Or someplace? I tried downloading some of the science/engineering texts I own in print (which I can no longer read) from bookshare, but the math equations are gibberish with voiceover (I used voicedreamreader, if it matters). I’ve heard of something called MathML, but not sure what that is, I think it’s for website formatting or something. Surely there’s a way to make math intelligible with a screen reader, but I’m stumped. Can anyone help?
Purple-Mallard 2 points 2y ago
Voice dream reader doesn't work very well either
Feel free to drop me a message if I can help you more
Have to deal with this every day trying to get my degree ☺️
I sometimes dream about putting together a database of accessible collections Of Notes place but have no idea of the legalities of doing that and haven't even made a start but if you find any good resources please get in touch and share them
Feel free to drop me a message if I can help you more
Have to deal with this every day trying to get my degree ☺️
I sometimes dream about putting together a database of accessible collections Of Notes place but have no idea of the legalities of doing that and haven't even made a start but if you find any good resources please get in touch and share them
Purple-Mallard 2 points 2y ago
Sorry I'm late to the party
I do maths at University
Your best bet is to try and find HTML lecture notes on the Internet and read them with NVDA or jaws, preferably NVDA in my experience. You will need to download mathplayer for this also
Looking for textbooks is just going to leave you frustrated as they are very poorly produced. Most of the equations will be images of the entire book or just be a PDF and in the best case you'll only be able to read certain bits of the maths.
Sample of some notes that read very well with NVDA at a quick glance:
https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/classes/de/de.aspx
these notes have been produced in mathML and work very well
I do maths at University
Your best bet is to try and find HTML lecture notes on the Internet and read them with NVDA or jaws, preferably NVDA in my experience. You will need to download mathplayer for this also
Looking for textbooks is just going to leave you frustrated as they are very poorly produced. Most of the equations will be images of the entire book or just be a PDF and in the best case you'll only be able to read certain bits of the maths.
Sample of some notes that read very well with NVDA at a quick glance:
https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/classes/de/de.aspx
these notes have been produced in mathML and work very well
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Thank you!
BenandGracie 2 points 2y ago
Try them in Microsoft Word format and read them on a computer. I have found that tends to work the best with anything using numbers or programming code.
YoYo31415 [OP] 2 points 2y ago
Hmm, I tried word format, but even going character by character, voiceover misses things. It’s like some of the characters are combined in one image or something.
How do college students do it? Are there places to get more accessible math/science/engineering texts? My books are basically all equations and derivations. :/
How do college students do it? Are there places to get more accessible math/science/engineering texts? My books are basically all equations and derivations. :/
BenandGracie 3 points 2y ago
Do you have access to Windows? If you are in college, Windows is your best bet. JAWS or NVDA tends to give the best results when using Word.
YoYo31415 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
I do have a windows laptop, but haven’t installed jaws or nvda on it yet since I’ve been focusing on learning voiceover and didn’t want to get confused. I’ll give it a go this weekend, thanks for the suggestion.
BenandGracie 2 points 2y ago
No problem. I have a Windows computer and a Mac. The Windows screen readers are far superior to the Mac when it comes to document editing.
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