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ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

blog.arxiv.org

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Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#181

Post by phlakaton »

miki123211 wrote: post #46
tarboreus wrote: post #39

One of the reasons is to make the papers more accessible to people with disabilities, especially the blind. I participated in a conference they hosted on this a few months ago, I recommend taking a look at the recordings if you're interested in thinking on this. https://accessibility2023.arxiv.org/

Blind person here, can confirm this. Reading PDFs with a screen reader is bad, reading PDFs that come from LaTeX is worse, reading LaTeX math is pretty much impossible. All the semantic info you need is just thrown away. You can make decently accessible PDFs but it's lots of work, you need Acrobat on the producer' side and might also need it on the consumer's side. Free tools don't even come close. There's also the f…

For the math equations, I'm curious: does MathML do any better for you than LaTeX?

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#182

Post by sydbarrett74 »

ldenoue wrote: post #94
miki123211 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blind person here, can confirm this. Reading PDFs with a screen reader is bad, reading PDFs that come from LaTeX is worse, reading LaTeX math is pretty much impossible. All the semantic info you need is just thrown away. You can make decently accessible PDFs but it's lots of work, you need Acrobat on the producer' side and might also need it on the consumer's side. Free tools don't even come close. There's also the f…

I wrote an app called PDF Reflow that reflows the original PDF using image processing to cut out words into tiles so you see the reflowed version of the text in their original look. https://www.appblit.com/pdfreflow

Any chance of releasing an Android version?

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#183

Post by wilg »

tarboreus wrote: post #39

One of the reasons is to make the papers more accessible to people with disabilities, especially the blind. I participated in a conference they hosted on this a few months ago, I recommend taking a look at the recordings if you're interested in thinking on this. https://accessibility2023.arxiv.org/

For accessibility purposes (and regular reading), it would be so much better to drop the justified text. Ragged edge is the way to go!

https://www.boia.org/blog/why-justified-or-centered-text-is-...

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#184

Post by jonatanheyman »

wilg wrote: post #183
tarboreus wrote: post #39

One of the reasons is to make the papers more accessible to people with disabilities, especially the blind. I participated in a conference they hosted on this a few months ago, I recommend taking a look at the recordings if you're interested in thinking on this. https://accessibility2023.arxiv.org/

For accessibility purposes (and regular reading), it would be so much better to drop the justified text. Ragged edge is the way to go! https://www.boia.org/blog/why-justified-or-centered-text-is-...

Not necessarily:

https://heyman.info/2023/fill-justified-text-on-the-web

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#185

Post by thfuran »

wolverine876 wrote: post #169
nonethewiser wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no straightfoward, standard way to read an html document on another platform. Such as? What doesn’t have a browser but can render pdfs?

I mean, how do I save it locally on one platform and read it on any platform? Or share it with someone else to read (without them downloading software)? I.e., we don't have a standard, local, single-file html format.

Print it to a pdf

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#186

Post by matt1 »

team_dale wrote: post #148
matt1 wrote: post #41

For anyone interested in staying informed about important new AI/ML papers on arXiv, check out https://www.emergentmind.com , a site I'm building that should help. Emergent Mind works by checking social media for arXiv paper mentions (HackerNews, Reddit, X, YouTube, and GitHub), then ranks the papers based on how much social media activity there has been and how long since the paper was published (similar to how HN a…

Would love to see a comments feature at the bottom there. Reddit / HN style Love the concept though. Added it to my Home Screen on iOS

Thanks for the kind words, it's appreciated.

I might add comments down the road if there's enough interest and if there's enough traffic to warrant it. Don't want to add them just yet and have zero comments on everything and it look like a ghost town.

Keep the suggestions coming though as you use it more: matt@emergentmind.com.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#187

Post by matt1 »

danielbln wrote: post #149
matt1 wrote: post #41

For anyone interested in staying informed about important new AI/ML papers on arXiv, check out https://www.emergentmind.com , a site I'm building that should help. Emergent Mind works by checking social media for arXiv paper mentions (HackerNews, Reddit, X, YouTube, and GitHub), then ranks the papers based on how much social media activity there has been and how long since the paper was published (similar to how HN a…

Works in Chrome, but does not seem to work in Firefox.

Can you (or anyone experiencing similar issues) share any details about what's not working in Firefox? I tested it and all is well for me, though it's definitely possible there's an issue with some other version of it.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#188

Post by macintux »

smartmic wrote: post #110
z2h-a6n wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on arXiv (unless I'm much mistaken), which is a preprint server, not a conventional journal. arXiv accepts various flavors of TeX, or PDFs not produced by TeX [0], and automatically produces PDFs and HTML where possible (e.g. if TeX is submitted). In the case of the example paper under discussion, the authors submitted TeX with PDF figures [1], and the PDF version of the paper was produced by arXiv. The formattin…

FWIW, I recently learned that it is also possible to produce nice PDF papers with GNU roff (groff), have a look at this example: https://github.com/SudarsonNantha/LinuxConfigs/blob/master/....

W. Richard Stevens (RIP, still hurts) famously used troff for his books.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#189

Post by matt1 »

sureglymop wrote: post #108
matt1 wrote: post #41

For anyone interested in staying informed about important new AI/ML papers on arXiv, check out https://www.emergentmind.com , a site I'm building that should help. Emergent Mind works by checking social media for arXiv paper mentions (HackerNews, Reddit, X, YouTube, and GitHub), then ranks the papers based on how much social media activity there has been and how long since the paper was published (similar to how HN a…

Love the clean design of the website! Looks amazing on mobile.

Thanks! If you ever run into any issues or have any suggestions for improving the site, drop me a note: matt@emergentmind.com.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#190

Post by wilg »

jonatanheyman wrote: post #184
wilg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For accessibility purposes (and regular reading), it would be so much better to drop the justified text. Ragged edge is the way to go! https://www.boia.org/blog/why-justified-or-centered-text-is-...

Not necessarily: https://heyman.info/2023/fill-justified-text-on-the-web

Perhaps someone can publish a paper to arXiv that provides a meta-analysis. But still there doesn't seem to be a clear reason to justify it, given that almost all internet text is not justified.
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