Put terminal magic into your toolbox and use your computer like a pro!
The terminal used to be something everyone knew about. If you talked to a developer in the 90s or early 2000s, they all lived in a text-based environment. These days most people go straight to graphical tools, and the terminal feels like some ancient thing nerds use at 2 AM.
But for blind users, this old “outdated” tool is actually one of the best and most accessible environments we have.
Using the terminal is a way to interact with the computer where the user writes commands and the computer responds accordingly but do not be scared the basic things are very easy: Just a couple of words with the correct symbols in the correct order. The great thing about it is that the terminal is pure text. No unlabeled buttons, no weird layouts, no visual-only menus. Everything you need is written out, line by line, You don’t fight with animations or complicated interfaces. You just type commands and get results.
For me, as a blind person who works with math coding and data, the terminal is the one place where I always feel fully in control. I don’t have to hope that an app UI is accessible. I don’t have to hunt for buttons. I don’t need someone to explain what’s on the screen. I just use commands, and everything is consistent.
It’s funny: sighted people used to rely on the terminal because computers weren’t advanced enough. Now some of us rely on it because computers have become too “fancy” in ways that often break accessibility.
I honestly think more blind people should learn the basics. Even simple things like navigating folders, running scripts, installing tools, or checking logs can make life way easier. You don’t need to be a programmer , just knowing a bit of the command line gives you a powerful and predictable workspace.
On macOS for example, with one line in the terminal, something like: brew install programname you can install software instantly. No inaccessible website, no hunting for the right download button, no guessing which file works for your system. Just type it, hit enter, done.
Another example would be if you want to filter all your .docx files from a directory and move them to another directory that you then want to compress into a .zip file and send it via email. I just write a terminal command that takes 2 seconds. The thing is it takes 2 seconds regardless if there are 2 or 200 files in the directory. How much time do you need to do this from the graphical user interface (GUI)? and
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting you do everything by it but some use cases can save you much time and energy! Make sure to subscribe to not miss my next terminal post where I will talk about my most time saving terminal tricks.
How to read and write math like a pro?
This was a scary question for me during Highschool. I was using a bit of braill and used to just work equations in my head but both did not feel like long term solutions especially when it comes to collaborating with sighted people. There were no blind people around who had studied a math related subject in the university and special education teachers had no idea what to recommend. I was very lucky when I met a blind chess player during an international chess tournament for the blind who told me about LaTeX , something like a special language for writing math in the computer. It sounded very complicated even the words involved were weird to me what the fuck is a compiler and what does it mean to run and debug. I was interested for sure but how do you even get started with something like this when you do not understand anything about it? Today you could ask an large language model I guess but at that point this was not an option. Let me share some things I would have liked someone to tell me at that time and hopefully you can get started much faster than I did.
LaTeX is a markup language, something like a programming language, but much easier,b and its goal is to produce professional documents mainly in PDF format not actual programs. I am by no means an expert on LaTeX, but as I used it for many years, I would like to share the basics about it to give you just a first idea about it.LaTeX is used widely in the scientific community and by publishers. One of its big advantages for blind users is that it is fully text-based. There are no weird graphical menus, unlabeled buttons, or navigation obstacles. You just write text.
To write a fraction in LaTeX, for example, you type something like: \frac{numerator}{denominator} and there are similar commands for every mathematical expression: integrals, derivatives, Greek letters, matrices, you name it.
The amazing thing is that there is no mathematical symbol, function, or expression that you cannot write in LaTeX. It was not designed for accessibility, but it happens to be very accessible, because everything is written in clear text.
Another big advantage is that after a blind person writes a document and asks LaTeX to create the PDF, the result is immediately readable by every sighted person who understands math. No intermediate translation, no special requirements. Just a normal scientific document.
Nowadays, with large language models like ChatGPT, you can even ask math questions and get the answer directly in LaTeX, so you can read it yourself, learn from it, or copy it directly into your school work, research, or reports.
Something that is particularly useful For university students is that many professors already write their notes in LaTeX. Sometimes they can even share the source files with you so that you can study directly from them in an accessible way.
A nice bonus for people who are using word is that for easy mathematical expressions you can use LaTeX to write math in word too. I am not using this So I cannot say how well it works in practice but it should be good if you are writing a document and you have only a few mathematical expressions. I know that there were many efforts to make other solutions for reading and writing math which are based on LaTeX, but I have never used them. If someone has successfully used one such solution, I would be super interested to learn about it. So please send me an email. I believe that if a blind person wants to study a STEM subject today there is no real alternative at the moment than using LaTeX one way or another this is why I will publish a LaTeX learning tutorial in the near future along with recommendations for how to write and read it in different operating systems. be sure to subscribe to not miss this and any other posts!
LaTeX for Blind Beginners, The Tutorial I Wish Someone Had Given Me at 16!
LaTeX looks scary the first time you see it. If you actually hear it, it sounds even worse. A bunch of backslashes, braces, symbols… It feels like math decided to learn programming out of spite.
But once you understand the logic behind it, LaTeX becomes the most accessible and blind-friendly way to write math — cleaner, faster, and more predictable than any editor with buttons and visual menus. Here, we start from the very beginning and use examples from high-school math. If you are using a screen reader to go through this post, turn on the maximum verbosity level because there are small sneaky symbols hidden everywhere if you do not.
LaTeX is to be written in special files with the ending “.tex”, so for example our first file could be named “first_example.tex”. A LaTeX file is not something you open with Microsoft Word. It is basically a pure text file with no fancy properties, but it contains commands telling LaTeX how to produce a PDF document.
Therefore, you can open “first_example.tex” using any text editor: Notepad in Windows, gedit in Linux, or TextEdit in macOS.
But let us now look into this mysterious new kind of document and see how it actually works.  1. The Document Class Your LaTeX document must begin with a declaration like:
\documentclass{article}
Think of it as telling LaTeX: “Hey, today I want to write an article — please behave accordingly.”
Different classes exist: • article — for short documents • report — for longer work like theses • book — for books • beamer — for presentations
When you’re starting out, article is your best friend. Simple, elegant, does what you need, no drama.
2. Packages — the Superpowers You Install Packages are extra tools that add functionality. For example: • amsmath → better math tools • amssymb → more symbols • geometry → control page layout • graphicx → insert images
To tell LaTeX that you want to use this additional functionality, you include the package like this: \usepackage{amsmath} Every package gives you new commands.
3. Beginning and Ending the Document After loading packages, it’s time to begin the actual document. You do this with:
\begin{document}
and end it with:
\end{document}
So for example:
\begin{document} Your text and equations go here. \end{document}
Everything between these two lines becomes the content of your PDF. Everything above it is setup commands and are not visible in the final document.
Now let’s finally write something, because the whole point is to produce a readable PDF — without fighting with our friend Billy (Billy the big Billy the Microsoft guy).
4. The Two Symbols That Rule the LaTeX Universe Before we write equations, we must understand two characters:
The Backslash: Whenever LaTeX sees “\”, it thinks: “Oh! A command! Something special is happening!”
Examples: \sin \frac \sqrt \theta \cos \tan \alpha
Everything that starts with a backslash is a function, symbol, or instruction. This single rule already makes you aware that you have to pay special attention as a LaTeX reader that the text is interrupted and something else is going on. Curly Braces { } Curly braces bundle things together and act as containers for LaTeX functions and commands arguments..
• In fractions: numerator in {…}, denominator in {…} • In exponents: the whole exponent goes in {…} • In functions: arguments often go in {…}
so remember this: Braces = grouping, Backslash = command.
5. Writing Your First Equation! Let’s begin with something familiar — Pythagoras:
a squared plus b squared equals c squared.
This is one of the most famous equations in mathematics. Here is how we write it in LaTeX:
$a^{2} + b^{2} = c^{2}$
Why the dollar signs? Because this is one way to tell LaTeX: “Pay attention — I’m including math inside my sentence.”
The ^ symbol is used for exponents and the {} symbols are used to tell LaTeX what is the actual exponent. Congratulations — you wrote your first LaTeX equation!
Now let’s write a fraction. Fractions use the command \frac{numerator}{denominator}, which needs two brace groups.
Example: the definition of sine — opposite over hypotenuse:
$\frac{opposite}{hypotenuse}$
Let us now look at some trigonometry with familiar symbols. You already know the definitions:
sin(θ) = opposite / hypotenuse cos(θ) = adjacent / hypotenuse tan(θ) = opposite / adjacent
Here is how LaTeX thinks:
• \sin is the mathematical sine symbol. • \theta is the Greek letter θ.
So if we want the sine of theta, we write: $\sin{\theta}$
The \ tells LaTeX this is a function, and the { } give it the argument. If we wrote “theta” with letters, LaTeX would literally type t-h-e-t-a — and I’m sorry, my ancestors were a bit funny with their letters so this would not work properly.
Now let’s write the definition of tangent using what we know: $\tan{\theta} = \frac{\sin{\theta}}{\cos{\theta}}$
It is very important that every “{” has a matching “}”, because otherwise everything breaks apart and your document becomes chaos.
If we want to write that the sine of 45 degrees is 1 over the square root of 2, we use the square-root function \sqrt{}:
$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}$
At this point you’re using backslashes, fractions, roots, Greek letters — real math.
6. Three ways to Include Equations in the document
You already know how to use single $ symbols at the beginning and end of an equation. This keeps the math inline with your text and is recommended for small equations.
For larger equations, one should use double dollar signs. For example:
$$\sin^{2}{\theta} + \cos^{2}{\theta} = 1$$
This displays the identity centered on its own line.
We also used { } in the exponent — this is good practice, especially for more complicated expressions.
The other way to write math is by using the environment:
\begin{equation} … \end{equation}
This works like \begin{document} and \end{document}, but specifically for equations. Inside this environment you do not use $ or $$ because LaTeX already knows it is math.
This method is slower to type but looks cleaner and automatically numbers your equations, something very useful in longer documents.
7. A Minimal Working LaTeX Document
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{amssymb}
\begin{document}
I already love AudioThrive, because this is where I finally learned how to write the Pythagorean theorem in \LaTeX: $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$. I even learned how to write the definition of the tangent function: $\tan(\theta) = \frac{\sin(\theta)}{\cos(\theta)}$. And as a bonus, I can now type the classic identity $\sin^2(\theta) + \cos^2(\theta) = 1$. At this point I definitely want to subscribe — I don’t want to miss the next tutorial!
\end{document}
Everything between \begin{document} and \end{document} is what gets into the final pdf document we want to create. Everything before it is setup.
8. Turning This Strange Text Document Into a PDF Now comes the fun part: how do we turn this weird file full of slashes and braces into a beautiful PDF document?
That depends on your system. First, you must have LaTeX installed. Then you must use a program that takes your .tex file and compiles it into a PDF. You can do this by following the installation guides in the posts below, depending on your operating system. 
Installing LaTeX on Windows as a screen reader user
1. Install MiKTeX (the LaTeX system) MiKTeX is the engine that actually compiles your .tex files into PDFs.
Steps: • Open your browser and go to: https://miktex.org/download • Choose “MiKTeX Installer (64-bit)”. • Run the installer. • When asked whether MiKTeX should install missing packages automatically, choose “Yes”. This is important because it allows LaTeX to download any needed components without asking you. MiKTeX will then take care of updates on its own. 2. Install TeXnicCenter (the editor) TeXnicCenter is a keyboard-accessible LaTeX editor that works well with screen readers.
Steps: • Go to https://www.texniccenter.org/download/ • Download the installer. • Install it with all default options. You can open TeXnicCenter from the Start Menu after installation. 3. First-Time Setup (LaTeX Path Detection) When TeXnicCenter starts for the first time, it usually detects MiKTeX automatically. If it does, you don’t need to change anything.
If it asks you to provide the path manually, you will need to select the folder that contains pdflatex.exe. Common locations include:
C:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64 or C:\Users<your username>\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64\
Your screen reader will read the files inside the folder, so you can navigate with arrow keys until you hear “pdflatex.exe”. 4. Create Your First LaTeX Document In TeXnicCenter: • Press Alt + F to open the File menu. • Press N to create a new file. You now have an empty document. Paste this simple text to test your setup:
\documentclass{article} \begin{document} Hello world! This is my first \LaTeX\ document. \end{document}
Save the file using Ctrl + S and name it for example “test.tex”. 5. Compile to PDF To compile: • Press F5. This runs the default “Build and View” command. MiKTeX will compile the file, and when it finishes, a PDF viewer will open automatically.
If nothing happens, switch to the PDF profile: • Press Alt + B for the Build menu. • Choose “Output → PDF”. Then press F5 again. 6. A More Accessible PDF Reader (Recommended) Many blind LaTeX users prefer SumatraPDF because: • it does not lock the .tex file, • it integrates nicely with LaTeX editors, • it is lightweight and quick to open. You can download it at: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/download-free-pdf-viewer
TeXnicCenter usually detects it automatically. You can also now use the file we created in the post above.
Be careful to use the syntax we learned properly because even a small mistake can make LaTeX compilation to crush and then you do not get a pdf document at all. If your editor tells you there is a problem at line with number x you should know that the problem is always at line x and above. THis is a basic principal with all the programming languages and while LaTeX is not exactly one this principal is true here too. enjoy and do not worry you will break your documents countless times it is part of learning. These days you can give your LaTeX to a large language model like chat gpt GPT and ask it to find your mistakes for you. If you do this always try to learn from your mistakes do not just use the output it gives you go and correct them one by one. Do not take shortcuts this is the only way to real mastery.