Re: Converting MathML to text (and TeX/LaTeX)

My company, Design Science, makes MathPlayer which does the conversion of
speech to text and integrates with screen readers and other assistive
technology.  The next version does that for at least 12 different
languages.  It can also handle regional variations (eg, en-uk vs en-us), but
we haven't done that even though that is obviously much less work than doing
a full language translation.  MathPlayer also offers flexibility in the
speech generated so that someone with a learning disability doesn't have to
listen to the disambiguation needed for those who are blind.

We do offer MathFlow SDK, a separate product that can take MathML or a whole
XHTML document in and return a text string to speak or set the alttext
value.  Unlike MathPlayer, MathFlow SDK is not free though.  If you want
more info on MathFlow, please visit
http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathflow/mf_eval.htm

Neil Soiffer
Senior Scientist
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~





On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 3:51 AM, J.Fine <j.fine@open.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi
>
> I've got another question.  Unless it's already done I need to write tools
> that convert MathML to text (for reading out loud) and to TeX/LaTeX (for
> typesetting).
>
> If possible I'd like to make use of existing work.  Please let me know of
> any errors or omissions (especially omissions) in the following list.
>
> http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000306.html<http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/%7Edistler/blog/archives/000306.html>("I guess I've asked this before, but are you aware of any tools for
> converting itex/LaTeX/MathML to text?")
>
>
> http://devblog.cnx.org/2010/08/epub-development-details.html ("EPUB
> readers do not support MathML, so the obvious solution was to convert simple
> MathML to text and convert all of the more complex MathML to images.")
>
> (And see also
> https://trac.rhaptos.org/trac/rhaptos/wiki/TechnicalDocumentation/Code/EPUB
> https://trac.rhaptos.org/trac/rhaptos/browser/mathml2/trunk/README.txt
> ).
>
>
> http://www.mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/6429_mathsteachinginclusive.pdf("MathML to text to voice
> If MathML in a Web page is transformed to text, and this is not a trivial
> problem (particularly when the more commonly used presentation mark-up is
> used alone), then this text in turn can be transformed to voice, if it is
> passed to a screen-reader, in the same way that other text is read in the
> Web page.")
>
> http://www.biglist.com/lists/xsl-list/archives/200607/msg00675.html ("XSLT
> [...] is ideally suited for this [convert MathML to text].")
>
> http://www.orcca.on.ca/MathML/texmml/mmltotex.html ("MathML to TeX Online
> Translator" [the backend seems to have disappeared]).
>
> (And see also http://www.orcca.on.ca/MathML/, which does not offer the
> MathML to TeX translator for download.)
>
> Finally, although not mathml, there is http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/by T.V. Raman.
>
> (See also http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/aster/aster-toplevel.html"Notice that AsTeR produces good intonational structure when speaking text
> that is intermixed with mathematics.")
>
>
> So, please let me know if I've missed anything out.
>
>
> Jonathan
>
> --
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>
>
>