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

[Catherine Stager]

We also are doing similar process: I echo Sean's comment about paying attention to line length and want to mention to pay attention to line breaks and page breaks as well.

We also go from LaTex to Nemeth. If bringing LaTex into DBT remember to bring it in as a standard literary format (even if the is counterintuitive.)

Has anyone looked at or used WIRIS.Com? or WIRIS editor?  http://www.wiris.com/   MathML and LaTex interface all written in HTML5.  They really talk up their accessibility.

JAWS did okay with inputting math into it but you can't move character by character to edit and get spoken output. You can get to the spoken math in a separate section but would have to jump between the two sections. Interesting though.

Comments?
Thanks,
Cath



-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Sean J Keegan
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:50 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word/MathType to Nemeth Braille work flow?

We have (essentially) the same workflow that Brian outlined in terms of converting MS Word documents to Nemeth via Duxbury. We have a few "Nemeth-familiar" transcribers who are sighted and can do the math corrections in Duxbury while reviewing the document. During production, these transcribers work together to improve the accuracy of the final materials. We also do outsourcing as well for some textbook chapters while concentrating on the tactile graphics, lecture notes, and handouts for in-house production.

While the conversion from MS Word+MathType to Nemeth via Duxbury has gotten better in the recent version, there are still times when you need to verify the conversion is correct. If someone is doing just the automatic conversion, then there will be errors. Additionally, you can encounter issues with formatting where there is either too much or too little spacing applied to the braille document that makes it more challenging to read. We have had to check how the student wants to read the Nemeth materials. If the student is using a refreshable braille display, then we pay very close attention to the line length; what looked "good" in Duxbury for embossing may not render well on a portable braille display.

Do not use the embedded Equation Editor in MS Word. You need to use MathType for MS Word documents.

Take care,
Sean


----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Richwine" <blrichwine at gmail.com>
To: "Access Technology Higher Education Network" <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 3:26:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word/MathType to Nemeth Braille work flow?


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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