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

Todd Schwanke tschwanke at wisc.edu
Fri Jun 21 13:41:00 PDT 2013



Thanks all for sharing your work flows and experiences! Sounds like the challenges are similar, along with the work flows.

A few follow-up questions.

* When producing these books, do you use the convention of doing all numbers and symbols in Nemeth even if they are in a paragraph, or do you switch back and forth between literary for paragraphs and Nemeth for stand-alone equations?

* Are you aware of any active efforts to improve the conversion of Word/MathType documents in Duxbury? It seems there are a number of common conversion issues that always need to be corrected manually.

* From a Word document with MathType, have you had any better or consistent luck going to another format like LaTeX before converting to Nemeth Braille?

* Is anyone using the Duxbury Word 2010 template to format their documents for improved conversion?

* Does anyone have any students who are using a Braille display (rather than speech) in conjunction with MathML in IE for textbooks, instead of Nemeth Braille? If so, what have been the differences/advantages/disadvantages both from the student's and production perspectives?

Thank you and happy summer!
Todd
UW-Madison


On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Catherine Stager <Catherine.Stager at colorado.edu>
wrote:
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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