Kathy's comment about mathML is (fortunately) now outdated.  MathML is
supported on all major browsers now that Netscape 7 has been released.  IE
requires a free plugin but reports are that all browsers display mathML
very well now.  Unfortunately mathML still isn't very accessible to blind
people yet.  I'm not aware of Richard Jones' mathML to LaTeX
converter.  Although there are a number of mathML to LaTeX (anc vice versa)
programs, my information is that none work well.  And Duxbury still has
lots of bugs in their LaTeX to Nemeth conversion.  All in all somewhat sad
but improving.

Table markup incidentally is far more difficult that I had realized before
attending a Federal workshop on accessibility of web statistics.  Web
tables are marginally adequate for marking them up, and no screen readers
really give adequate access.

Nonetheless, the right way today to present math in tables is with mathML
and web table markup.  Accessibility is catching up.

Good luck, this is still just beyond cutting edge.

John
At 12:16 PM 10/2/2002 -0400, Kathleen Cahill wrote:
>At this point, Math ML is  not supported by most browsers and thus, is not
>yet being widely used.  See the World Wide Web Consortium's Math ML FAQ
>for more information:  http://www.w3.org/Math/mathml-faq.html  One of
>their quotes states:
>
>MathML is XML-based. Will the browser manufacturers support XML fully?
>Will they support MathML
>              natively ?
>              Yes. Both Microsoft and Netscape have publicly declared
> support for the XML recommendation. Some XML
>              support is already available for IE 4. As the browser
> manufacturers move toward fuller support of XML and the
>              associated style sheet standards such as XSL that are
> developing, support for MathML will become more
>              "native".
>
>Screen readers can't do mathematical information although someday, they
>may be able to interpret MathML.  We have the same problem here at MIT,
>where many online course handouts contain mathematical information in PDF
>format that is not accessible to a screen reader.  It is possible to
>translate the mathematical info into Nemeth code (Braille Mathematics
>code) but it is a laborious process.  If anyone has other ideas as to how
>to make the mathematical information accessible, I would love to hear it.
>
>Regards,
>Kathy
>
>
>At 11:19 AM 10/2/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>>As part of a web accessibility initiative we have huge amounts of PDFs
>>that contain numerous mathematical & scientific equations.   We want to
>>have them formatted in such a way that can be converted to Braille and be
>>'read' by screen reading products.  We are currently looking at
>>MathML.  any recommendations?  Time is of the essence.
>>
>>Thanks in advance
>>
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Kathy Cahill
>MIT Adaptive Technology (ATIC) lab
>77 Mass. Ave. 7-143
>Cambridge MA 02139
>(617) 253-5111
>[log in to unmask]

John Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu