[Athen] Word/MathType to Nemeth Braille work flow?

[Brian Richwine]

Hello Todd,

We do the following:

   1. Open word document containing MathType equations in the Duxbury
   Braille Translator (the computer must also have MathType installed on it as
   Duxbury will call on MathType to in the conversion process).
   2. Format for document braille as normal
   3. Then, very important, proof the document.
   1. This requires two people:
         1. a person who can read Nemeth braille -- we use a refreshable
         braille display and proof straight from Duxbury so
corrections can be made
         on the fly (referred to as the braille reader below)
         2. a sighted proofreader who understands the math notation
         involved and can verify the result is correct.
      2. If the document wasn't originally created in MathType by the
      original content creator, then the sighted user must look at the original
      source (paper, PDF, etc.) in case mistakes were made while entering the
      equations into MathType.
      3. The braille reader must go through the document from top to bottom
      in Duxbury and read each instance of Nemeth braille they find.
At the same
      time, the sighted proofreader is looking through the print
document to make
      sure no math content was missed. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT -- Duxbury will
      fail silently when some errors in the conversion process from MathType to
      Nemeth occur!! This is frustrating. Equations / math content will simply
      disappear.
      4. The braille reader reads each instance of math to the sighted
      proofreader.

The conversion process has improved somewhat somewhere in the most recent
versions of MathType and Duxbury. It used to be much worse at dropping math
content and making other errors. Frequent conversion errors that we see are
repeated terms. For instance, (a+c)/d might become (a+b)/(a+b)d in the
Nemeth braille. It requires a lot of concentration on the part of the
proofreaders to catch the mistakes.

I'm not sure that the process will work with the stock Microsoft Equation
editor. When we tried it a few years ago, it didn't work and we had to use
MathType.

When we have to do a lot of math braille production (like an entire
textbook), we usually contract a certified braille transcriber to do it.
The usually enter the Nemeth braille directly by sight and it is much less
error prone and is much cheaper than what we can do in house. We usually do
smaller, time sensitive jobs (like a study guide, quiz, exam, etc.) in
house.

-Brian


On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 4:02 PM, Todd Schwanke <tschwanke at wisc.edu> wrote:


> Good afternoon:

>

> Checking to see what work flows others might have written up or use to get

> the best conversion of Microsoft Word math documents (.doc and .docx with

> embedded Equation Editor and/or MathType equations) to Nemeth Braille.

>

> Thank you,

> Todd Schwanke

> UW-Madison

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