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An Automatized Method Based on LaTeX for the Realization of Accessible PDF Documents Containing Formulae

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Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10896))

Abstract

Assistive technologies for visually impaired people (screen readers and braille displays) perform satisfactorily with regard to digital documents containing alphabet characters, but they still have a long way to go as far as formulae and graphs are concerned. In general, the most spread digital documents are in PDF format. However, in the case of mathematical contents, they are not accessible at all, since formulae are usually unreadable by screen readers. Currently, a standard and fast method for inserting accessible formulae into a PDF document is still lacking despite it is a very important issue for spreading accessible digital scientific documents. In this paper, we propose a method for automatically generating a PDF document with mathematical contents accessible by assistive technologies for visually impaired people. Specifically, we have developed a LaTeX package that produces a final PDF document where the formulae are totally accessible by screen readers and braille displays.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the bank foundation ‘Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino’, LeoClub (Biella, Italy), and the several volunteers with visual impairment who provided their fundamental contribution.

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Correspondence to Sandro Coriasco .

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Armano, T., Capietto, A., Coriasco, S., Murru, N., Ruighi, A., Taranto, E. (2018). An Automatized Method Based on LaTeX for the Realization of Accessible PDF Documents Containing Formulae. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10896. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94277-3_91

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94277-3_91

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94276-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94277-3

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