[Athen] Equations in Instructional Text

[Keith Kolander]

Jayna,
I have used NVDA, MathType and MathPlayer, but lately have been using CAR (Central Access Reader).  It’s free, but unfortunately not being supported anymore.  It’s not fully compatible with Win 10, but it still works, with some editing as needed on your Word docs.  Try it.   It has a lot of nice features on it, including highlighting as it reads.
First, convert equations in Word to MML, using MathType.  That helps matters.  Any equations that don’t read right (stuff not entered in Word correctly for math), you can copy them into MathType and fix them.   It also says ‘error’ a lot when it encounters blank spaces in an equation or before it, so getting rid of blank spaces helps.
Do a little test with it and see if it will work for you.

Keith
Keith Kolander
Adaptive Technology Specialist
St. Charles Community College
Cottleville, MO  63376
kkolander at stchas.edu<mailto:kkolander at stchas.edu>



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Stephen Marositz
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2021 10:30 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Equations in Instructional Text

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the college. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Hello Jayna

I am not sure I fully understand your scenario but let me take a stab at it. Could you send along and example of a paragraph that have equations within the instructional text?

In order to get NVDA to read math equations in Word, the end user must have Mathtype installed on their system along with MathPlayer. The trial version of Mathtype will work fine because NVDA only uses Mathtype to get the MathML.

I hope this helps.


Alex Marositz
Accessible Technology Initiative Coordinator
Information Security and Compliance
California State University, Dominguez Hills

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Jayna Phinney
Sent: Monday, December 6, 2021 2:48 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Equations in Instructional Text

Hello All,

We are revising a mathematics textbook that faculty on our campus authored about 20 years ago. We are working in the Word file and rewriting the equations with MathType. The project is going well except for the sections that have equations within the instructional text.

We’ve been checking our work using MathPlayer, NVDA, and the Read Aloud feature in Word. The problem is that NVDA and Read Aloud don’t know how to read the equations in the instructional text, but there’s really not a way to alert readers that they need to switch over to MathPlayer, especially when the equation may just be a portion of a larger equation and it’s just a small part of the sentence.

Does anyone have a solution for this, or are there any best practices?

Thanks for any help you can offer.


[U]
Jayna Phinney
Instructional Technology Specialist,
College of Science and Engineering
Angelo State University
Member, Texas Tech University System
ASU Station #11041
San Angelo, TX 76909-1041
Phone: 325-486-6264
jayna.phinney at angelo.edu<mailto:jayna.phinney at angelo.edu>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20211208/20cec8c3/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2072 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20211208/20cec8c3/attachment.png>