Category: Accessibility File Conversion Tools

ACCESSIBLE LEARNING: How to Convert Handwritten Math to Accessible Formats

Posted on by Mary Gillen

Illustration of math formulas and diagrams

Students who study math, chemistry or physics create lots of handwritten notes.

How can instructors help make math and STEM information more accessible and engaging for every student, breaking away from pen and paper as the only option?

Here are two tools that can help.

EquatIO

EquatIO allows you to create equations, formulas, and more…digitally.

EquatIO gives students the opportunity to speak, draw or type problems and equations directly onto their devices. By moving to digital instruction, EquatIO makes math more accessible. Students with learning difficulties or visual impairments can hear their math read aloud to them.

Using the mobile version, students can take a photograph of written work and create a digital document.

Students and educators can also create and customize graphs with EquatIO. Powered by Desmos graphing calculator, EquatIO helps students to visualize and explore a written equation.

EquatIO is available as a Chrome extension, Web app or as a desktop app for either Windows or Mac. Try EquatIO free here.

The EquatIO premium subscription is also free for K-12 teachers. Apply for the subscription here.

Mathpix

Mathpix helps students convert images and PDFs to LaTeX, DOCX, Overleaf, Markdown, Excel, ChemDraw and more, with an AI-powered document conversion technology.

Mathpix equation shown on mobile phone and desktop devices

Mathpix Snip Editor converts scientific PDFs to editable formats like MS Word, HTML, Markdown, and LaTeX fast.

  • Works on PDFs containing math, tables, and figures
  • Works on 2-column PDFs
  • Optimized for scientific papers
  • Edit files in-app or export to your favorite tool
  • Converts PDFs to screenreader accessible Word documents

Mathpix Snip is available for Mobile Phones & Tablets (iOS & Android), Desktop Systems (MacOS, Windows and Linux) and as a Web app (Snip Notes). A free version is available for educators. STEM professionals can purchase access to MathPix for $4.99 per month. An account for multiple users (departments, schools and companies) is available for $9.99 a month.

An API MathpixOCR is also available for developers who wish to to integrate OCR capabilities into their own applications.

Find out more about Mathpix here.

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PDF Accessibility Remediation How to Fix 40 Common Errors

Whether you have limited experience with the PDF remediation process, are expanding your knowledge on how to remediate PDFs, or simply need a resource that can help remind you how to fix a frustrating error, the info provided in this e-book can help.

Download now.

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TOOL: Render Scientific Papers to Accessible HTML

Posted on by Mary Gillen
Scientific Formula Illustration

Check out Allen Institute for AI’s online tool Paper to HTML Converter, an experimental prototype that aims to render scientific papers in HTML so they can be more easily read by screen readers or on mobile devices.

Still in beta, the system is currently able to process PDFs, LaTeX source, and PubMed Central XMLs. To use this system, upload a scientific PDF (or LaTeX zip file or JATS XML) on the main page. When you press upload, the system will process the document in the background and return the HTML when it is done. This usually takes around 1-2 minutes per PDF depending on the size of the file, and is much faster for LaTeX or XML.

Note that there are still several known limitations when using the system. Tables are currently extracted from PDFs as images, which are not accessible. Mathematical content is either extracted with low fidelity or not being extracted at all from PDFs. Processing of LaTeX source and PubMed Central XML may lack some of the features implemented for PDF processing. The folks at Allen institute for AI are working to improve these components.

You can also have a look at the Paper Example Gallery. Clicking on one will render a reader-friendly HTML version.

RESOURCE TOOL: Use PDFsam to Count Pages in Multiple PDF Files

Posted on by Mary Gillen

Five PDF icons in a row

Need to count the pages in multiple PDFs without tediously opening each file and counting the pages manually?

Welcome to PDFsam, the free, open source tool designed to help you count PDF pages, as well as split and merge PDF files.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, PDFsam allows you to drag and drop multiple PDFs to its interface. The app then generates a spreadsheet-like report on the number of pages and info of each file. You can then copy and paste the report into Excel or other spreadsheet programs.

Download PDFsam for free now.

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Instant Download!

PDF Accessibility Remediation How to Fix 40 Common Errors

Whether you have limited experience with the PDF remediation process, are expanding your knowledge on how to remediate PDFs, or simply need a resource that can help remind you how to fix a frustrating error, the info provided in this e-book can help.

Download now.

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ACCESSIBILITY TOOLS: Convert PDF Files to MP3 Audio with RoboBraille.org

Posted on by Mary Gillen

Hispanic blind man with disability. Visually impaired man using Digital Assistant and Ease of Access functions on mobile phone, voice typing to smartphone

RoboBraille is an e-mail and web-based service capable of automatically transforming documents into a variety of alternate formats for the visually and reading impaired.

RoboBraille.org Logo

Originally created by Synscenter Refsnæs (the National Centre for Visually Impaired Children and Youth in Denmark) and Sensus ApS, RoboBraille is accessible 24/7 as a self-service solution and is available free of charge for individual, non-commercial use. Users don’t need not register in order to use the service.

Step 1: Select your file and upload it to the server (max 64 MB). Multiple files of the same type may be selected. Supported file types are .DOC, .DOCX, .PDF, .PPT, .PPTX, .TXT, .XML, .HTML, .HTM, .RTF, .EPUB, .MOBI, .TIFF, .TIF, .GIF, .JPG, .JPEG, .BMP, .PNG, .PCX, .DCX, .J2K, .JP2, .JPX, .DJV and .ASC

Step 2: Specify the target format of your document. The following formats are available: MP3 audio, Braille, E-book or Accessibility conversion.

List of RoboBraille Output Formats

Step 3: If you specify Accessibility conversion, here are your options: Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), RTF, Tagged PDF (text over image, image over text), Microsoft Excel (xls, xlsx), Windows Text (.txt) or HTML (.htm).

Robobraille Accessibility Options

Step 4: Add your email address then submit your file conversion request.

A Test

I uploaded an 11-page PDF file and requested a conversion to MP3. Within five minutes I received an email that contained a link to the MP3 file. I also received confirmation that the original PDF file I uploaded was deleted from the RoboBraille.org server.

Visit RoboBraille.org now and test the file conversion functionality.

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Instant Download!

PDF Accessibility Remediation How to Fix 40 Common Errors

Whether you have limited experience with the PDF remediation process, are expanding your knowledge on how to remediate PDFs, or simply need a resource that can help remind you how to fix a frustrating error, the info provided in this e-book can help.

Download now.

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