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Re: - JAWS math text output is just one letter X, regardless of the math content

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From: Hayman, Douglass
Date: Mar 26, 2024 8:15AM

Mike,

Don't know if this will be helpful in troubleshooting but about a year ago I was exploring NVDA to access math content and was finding it act oddly on navigating equations. A colleague who is a full time screen reader user and was a math major pointed out to me that different speech engines can play into this. I think that I'd liked the voice of Microsoft's voice over say one that was a default with NVDA. While the Microsoft one sounded great navigating web content, it was leaving out parts of equations. When I switched to another, it read equation components correctly.

Likely someone else will have some clues as to why JAWS is only reading the way it is for you versus NVDA.

Doug Hayman
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Information Technology
Olympic College
<EMAIL REMOVED>
(360) 475-7632



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From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Mike Warner
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 6:46 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [EXTERNAL] - [WebAIM] JAWS math text output is just one letter X, regardless of the math content

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Hi all,

we use MathJax for our MathML math. JAWS text output is just one letter X, regardless of the math content. JAWS versions 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 all do this. The speech output is perfect. NVDA has no issue in the text output as long as the access8math addon is installed. VoiceOver is also fine. Even something as simple as the following example that just has the number 4 in MathML outputs X in JAWS:

<math><mn>4</mn></math>

Is there something special that we need to do for JAWS?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike Warner
Director of IT Services
MindEdge Learning