MathML

[Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>]

Neil, Robert,

I am co-chair of the Open Document Format Accessibility Subcommittee for OASIS. The SC is writing a companion document to the ODF 1.1 spec. which descibes how Office Applications promote accessibility in the ODF Specification.

ODF includes MathML as its math markup language. We need some guidance in the following areas for which Steve Nobel suggested we contact you:

- What issues should office applications consider to preserve accessibility when converting from/to MathML? This question arose because an office application may convert between ODF and say PowerPoint
- What should an office application do to expose MathML so that it supports an accessible solution. For this we may want to convert to a text representation and in this case we would need to point to a set of rules on how to unwind a MathML equation to an editable text rendering?
- Are there rules for rendering in audio?
- Are there keyboard navigation rules for adding a MathML equation - or should we just convert to text?
- Can all MathML be converted to a PC text rendering and are there some abbreviated conversions like SQRT for common functions?

Are there issues I have not mentioned? Neither myself nor team members are MathML experts.


Thank you,
Rich




Rich Schwerdtfeger
Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review Board
blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer