MathBraille; a system to transform LATEX documents into Braille

Abstract

LATEX[1] is a very well-known document preparation system which is particularly useful to produce documents containing mathematical formulae. Many scientific articles are presented in LATEX. But raw LATEX document is not suitable for the blind to read in Braille; that is, to read LATEX command as a sequence of symbols and alphabets is not a good way for understanding LATEX text. It is desirable to develop a system which transforms mathematical formula expressed by LATEX notation into corresponding Braille.In Japan, there exist several softwares which transform electronic documents into Braille[2]. However, they can cope only with literal documents. Therefore, almost all of the scientific Braille texts have been produced by human power who knows Braille rule for mathematics. There are many organizations and volunteer groups which are keen to prepare Braille texts. Nevertheless, Japanese Braille rule for mathematics is so complicated that very few can produce scientific texts. This causes lots of trouble to the blind who wants to study sciences. Shortage of Braille texts in science and technology is one of the most serious problems for blind students at high school and university. Therefore, it is also desirable to construct an automatic transformation system with which scientific Braille texts are produced easily.The aim of this research is to resolve these two problems. We have developed a system MathBraille[3] which transforms JLATEX (an extension of LATEX that contains Chinese characters and Japanese syllabaries fonts for typesetting) documents into Braille. Furthermore, by utilizing this system, one can produce Braille text for mathematics without knowing Braille rule. To prepare the input file for MathBraille, one must have a basic knowledge of LATEX commands. Nevertheless, to learn basic LATEX commands is not so difficult as to master complicated Japanese Braille rule for mathematics. One can confirm the correctness of written mathematical formulae by previewer in LATEX instead of reading the mathematical formulae in Braille.In this report, the system MathBraille is explained. The programme for the system is coded using the programming language C and compiled by Microsoft 32-bit C/C++ Standard Compiler Version 10.00. MathBraille works on the DOS/V computers.

Uporabniški in pedagoški vidiki uporabe označevalnih jezikov

“…Med pozitivne učinke lahko štejemo tudi izboljšano vključenost in dostopnost, saj označevalni jeziki v primerjavi z vizualnimi orodji za urejanje dokumentov omogočajo bolj enakopraven dostop tudi slepim in slabovidnim uporabnikom [1], ki se lahko poslužijo tudi uporabe transformacijskih orodij v Braillovo pisavo [12]. Na UM FERI smo za potrebe poučevanja podatkovnih baz že uspešno uporabljali lasten domensko specifični jezik 1 (na prvi pogled podoben Markdownu), s katerim smo nadomestili grafično modeliranje entitetno-relacijskega modela, saj smo na takšen način slepim študentom zagotovili enakovredno in nemoteno vključenost v pedagoški proces.…”

Using NLG for speech synthesis of mathematical sentences

“…Since Braille is not a universal standard, different converters have been developed. The most widespread include conversion from LaTeX to Japanese Braille (Hara et al, 2000), to Nemeth code mostly used in English speaking countries (Papasalouros and Tsolomitis, 2015), to Marburg code mostly used in German speaking countries (Murillo-Morales et al, 2016) and from MathML to Spanish, French and Italian Braille codes (Soiffer, 2016). Nonetheless, Braille cannot support all the notations that can be expressed through LaTeX or presentation MathML (e.g., category theory, computational logic) and it has not a mechanism to introduce new notations hence the converters have a number of limitations.…”

A Direct TeX-to-Braille Transcribing Method

“…A non-exhaustive list could contain Duxbury (Duxbury Systems, n.d.), UMA (Karshmer et al, 2004), UMCL (Archambault et al, 2005), MAVIS (A. Karshmer, Gupta, Geiger, & Weaver, 1999), MathBraille (Hara et al, 2000) and Blind Friendly LaTeX (Gonzúrová & Hrabák, 2012 , 2003). For example, the text4ht software (Gurari, 2004) translates TeX to MathML and then the liblouis project (Egli, 2011) can be used for producing Braille from MathML.…”