[OS X TeX] off topic: Tex on mac for visually impaired

[David Derbes]

Hi.

I am not blind, but my eyes are not good, and getting worse. I’m learning to use the significant help in Mavericks/Yosemite more and more. For one thing, in Yosemite, you can dictate your commands (this may or may not be helpful for your friend.) I don’t think you need to invest in Nuance Dictate for Mac; Yosemite will, I think, do it all in terms of communicating with the computer. (But it won’t transcribe, alas, or at least I haven’t been able to feed Yosemite an audio file and have it turn out text.) For another, you can make fonts, the cursor, etc very large. (If your eyesight is starting to go, I strongly recommend making the cursor larger: Preferences->Accessibilty->Display.) If someone is blind, though, these modifications won’t help at all.

VoiceOver goes the other way, from computer to loudspeaker. The dictation goes from you to the computer. 

A neurosurgeon friend looked into this pretty carefully some years ago for his father, a neuropathologist with macular degeneration, and felt a Mac was the best option for his father. That doesn’t mean it will be the best for your friend.

To quote Herb, good luck!

David Derbes
U of Chicago Laboratory Schools




On Jun 16, 2015, at 12:14, R. Vijay Krishna <rvk7 at icloud.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody
> 
> Sorry for this somewhat strange question.  Does anyone have any insight into how well the Mac works with TeX and other programs for the visually impaired?    Does VoiceOever suffice?  Do you need any other software or hardware?
> 
> I have a blind friend on Windows who is considering the switch to a Mac, but is not sure how costly the switch might be.  Given that I don’t have his unique constraints, I was hoping someone else might be willing to offer some thoughts.
> 
> Thanks
> Vijay
> 
> 
> 
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