John, Thanks for the clarification.  Sorry if I confused anyone out there
with my outdated comments!

Kathy

At 06:54 PM 10/2/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Kathy's comment about mathML is (fortunately) now outdated.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

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kathy Cahill
MIT Adaptive Technology (ATIC) lab
77 Mass. Ave. 7-143
Cambridge MA 02139
(617) 253-5111
[log in to unmask]