Axessibility: Creating PDF documents with accessible formulae

PDF documents containing formulae generated by LATEX are usually not accessible by assistive tech- nologies for visually impaired people (i.e., by screen readers and braille displays). The LATEX package axessibility.sty that we have developed alleviates this issue, allowing one to create PDF documents where the formulae are read by these assistive technologies, since it automatically generates hidden comments in the PDF document (using the /ActualText attribute) in correspondence to each formula. This actual text is hidden in the PDF document, but the screen readers JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver read it correctly. Moreover, we have created NVDA and Jaws dictionaries (in English and in Italian) that provide reading in the natural language in case the user does not know LATEX commands. The package does not generate PDF/UA.