Math2braille: Opening access to mathematics

Abstract

It is clear that Braille has many problems when representing the complex information associated with mathematics. The reliance on linear representation removes much of the structure which aids the sighted user to quickly navigate an equation. A further problem with many accessible education tools is that the teacher must understand the accessible format and this can be both time-consuming and costly. There is little or no real competitor to MathML and the increased development of structural functionalities in the MathML 2.0 specification provides an excellent representation to parse into other formats. In order to improve facilities available in creating accessible solutions, the math2braille Module will soon be made available as an open source module which other developers can incorporate in their own systems. © Springer-Verlag 2004.