Re: Org mode export accessibility

[Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com>]

On 30/09/2022 20:29, T.V Raman wrote:
> 
> 9. Note that this is not the end of the trail; for such exports to
>     make a difference to the end-user, user-facing tools still need to
>     know "how" to leverage these facilities.

Do you mean that there are no tools yet that may take advantage of math 
expressions embedded into PDF as LaTeX source markup? I am just trying 
to figure out current state of affairs. I suppose, it is unlikely that 
someone from Org mailing list subscribers is ready to invest significant 
amount of time into development of LaTeX packages. However if there were 
ready to use and safe packages improving accessibility then changing 
export templates would be more real goal.

In the meanwhile I have realized that \usepackage{mmap} has a little use 
in isolation. Fractions, indices, etc. are lost. Maybe some other 
packages should be loaded to provide more informative text equivalent 
for math.

Some details concerning what I have tried is below.

Original LaTeX expression:

Text \[ \int_{\alpha}^{\beta} \frac{dx}{x^2 + \varepsilon} \]

pdftotext -layout output for \usepackage{mmap}:
Text   \int     \beta
                            dx
            \alpha        x2 + \varepsilon

end of output

pdftotext output for \usepackage{cmap} and \usepackage[noTeX]{mmap}:
Text   ∫︁   𝛽
                   𝑑𝑥
         𝛼       𝑥2 + 𝜀

end of output

pdftotext output when neither cmap nor mmap is loaded:
Text   Z   β
                  dx
        α       x2 + ε

end of output

For this dumb example effect of mmap is hardly noticeable. Integral 
symbol is not replaced by "Z", but it is hard to guess sub- and 
superscripts and presence of the \frac command. Without "-layout" order 
of symbols is mostly preserved, but structure is lost

Text
∫︁

𝛽

𝛼

𝑑𝑥
𝑥2 + 𝜀