Comments & Wishes ⇒ Accessibility

[Astor]

Hello. Below is a tex file that I copied from the Latex project. When I run my accessibility checker (Ally) it shows the mathematics as images and my screen reader won't the math. It's my understanding that \DocumentMetadata should convert the x, x-squared and the matrix to MathML. I'm not sure if I missed something or not, but any advice on how to make the math accessible would be appreciates. Thank you!

Code: Select all

%!TEX lualatex
\DocumentMetadata{uncompress,lang=en,
 testphase=latest,
 pdfversion=2.0,pdfstandard=ua-2,pdfstandard=a-4f}

\documentclass[12pt, fleqn]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{graphpap}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{unicode-math}

\title{Math tagged with Associated Files (luamml)}
\author{LaTeX Team}
\begin{document}

\maketitle{}

\section*{Basic mathematical expressions}

If $x$ is real, then $x^{2} \geq 0$.

\vspace{0.2in}
\noindent
A matrix equation.
\[
\begin{pmatrix}0&1\\1&0\end{pmatrix}
\begin{pmatrix}a&b\\c&d\end{pmatrix}
=
\begin{pmatrix}c&d\\a&b\end{pmatrix}
\]


\end{document}

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Astor,

welcome to the forum!

I think this is the source: Associated MathML Files. When I run LuaLaTeX on it, I get the attached PDF document. I don't see the math as images, but as characters and symbols. See, I can select characters for copy and paste - that would be impossible if it was an image:

selected-characters.jpg (100.54 KiB) Viewed 2689 times

That document contains 3 attachments:

attachments.jpg (46.17 KiB) Viewed 2689 times

I saved them and attached them here too. Those attachments contain the MathML code. One contains this:

Code: Select all

<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
<msup> <mi>𝑥</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup>
<mo lspace="0.278em" rspace="0.278em">≥</mo> <mn>0</mn> </math>

That's MathML, verified with iMathEQ.com:

mathml.jpg (64.09 KiB) Viewed 2689 times

If it doesn't work with your installed LaTeX version, you can use it on the LaTeX Project website directly, click on the "Generate Tagged PDF" button to compile it.

Stefan

[Astor]

Thanks for your reply, Stefan. Unfortunately, even when I run the tex file through the Latex project site, the math is still seen as an image in Ally (my accessibility checker) and the screen reader skips over it. I converted the file to html and the math doesn't even show up in that document. I can select the characters in the pdf too, but when I go to copy them, it says copy and copy image. When I copied x^2 >= 0, it was pasted as 𝑥2 ≥ 0.

Does your screen reader read the math in that document?

[Stefan Kottwitz]

I tested the default Apple Macbook screen reader. Indeed, it skipped math content, it did not spell the x, and it spelled the x^2>=0 as "twenty".

The equation was spelled as "zero one zero comma equal," and then it stopped. So, it seems that it is not treated as an image; just the default installed screen reader is bad.

Your screen reader may be different.

I cannot tell much more, but I happily give feedback. This forum here is independent of the LaTeX development, but you can give feedback to the LaTeX project team at https://github.com/latex3/tagging-project/issues.

Stefan

[Astor]

Thank you!