Access the guidelines
The original guidelines are available as an accessible PDF, hosted on the SIAM website, and can be accessed using the link below.
Download the guidelines as an accessible PDF
On this page, the LMS has created an HTML version of the guidelines with instructions for its authors.
For LMS authors
Books
New books must be accessible, so it is important that authors follow these guidelines when preparing their manuscripts.
The books team at Cambridge University Press will support authors if needed.
Contact:
Journal articles
Although not required, the Society encourages authors preparing journal articles to follow these guidelines to make their articles accessible.
Introduction
These Author Guidelines for Preparing Accessible Mathematics Content were drafted as a joint collaboration between the American Mathematical Society (AMS), European Mathematical Society (EMS), London Mathematical Society (LMS), and SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics). They are designed to provide concise guidance and examples to help authors prepare accessible mathematical content for books, journals, and other scholarly outputs.
Scholarly works made available in the EU and US are legally required to be accessible under the European Accessibility Act (from June 28, 2025) and an Update to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (from April 24, 2026).
Authors must therefore ensure that their content is written in compliance with the W3C WAI (World Wide Web Consortium - Web Accessibility Initiative) guidelines. If you have any feedback or suggestions to improve these guidelines, please contact your publisher.
Contents
- Access the guidelines
- For LMS authors
- Introduction
- Key principles
- Preparing a convertible LaTeX source file
- Creating accessible figures
- Short alt text for figures inserted using \includegraphics
- Short alt text for code-generated figures
- Underlying data for complex data plots
- Alt text for equations
- Acceptable formats for figures inserted using \includegraphics
- Animations/videos and photosensitive epilepsy
- Further reading and useful resources
- Alt text examples
Key principles
Most high-level mathematical content involves "complex images" as defined under the W3C WAI guidelines. These author guidelines provide further specific guidance in this regard.
The following key principles should be followed:
- Think about accessibility when you are creating your content, i.e., aim to have born-accessible content, rather than content that has to be remediated after being created.
- When writing, ensure any complex figure is always fully explained in the body text.
- Every complex figure (whether numbered or not, and whether inserted using \includegraphics or a code-generated figure) must always include the following:
- Informative body text, title, and caption that clearly convey the takeaway/outcome for the figure and
- Short alt text (i.e., 'alternative text' or 'alt text') that
- Describes the type of image
- Describes a short summary of the key points, and
- Includes a reference to the location in the body text, figure title, and/or caption that provides comprehensive information.
For short alt text details and instructions, see the 'Short alt text...' sections.
While these author guidelines focus on Complex Images, the W3C WAI guidelines also describe other image types. To help categorize your image, use this alt decision tree.
Preparing a convertible LaTeX source file
- Make sure to follow the template and instructions provided in these guidelines, paying particular attention to which packages are supported by your publisher.
- If you are unsure if a package is supported, be sure to ask your publisher as soon as possible. Many common LaTeX packages are not compatible with accessible document creation.
Creating accessible figures
-
Never rely on colour alone to communicate key information in the figure (e.g., see Colour is not enough). Instead, pair colours with easily distinguishable textures, labels, shapes, and/or dash patterns. If a figure uses too many patterns, avoid using similar ones (e.g., dashed or dotted lines) that may be difficult to distinguish, especially when lines overlap in charts.
EXAMPLE
- Original version
- Revised accessible version
Source: B. Blanchette, T. Brüstle, and E. J. Hanson, Exact structures for persistence modules. In Representations of Algebras and Related Topics. Proceedings of the Workshop and the 20th International Conference on Representations of Algebras, ICRA 2022, EMS Series of Congress Reports Vol. 221, EMS Press, Berlin. https://doi.org/10.4171/ecr/21/4
Tip: Check your figure’s accessibility by viewing it in grayscale—is the meaning still fully conveyed without colour?
- Check colour contrast
- Ensure the following figure elements have these colour contrast ratios against adjacent colour(s):
- Key graphical elements and icons (non-text), such as data lines, pie slices, and bar colours: 3:1
- Regular text: 4.5:1
- Large text (18pt / 24px or 14pt bolded): 3:1
- Decorative elements: No requirement
- Colour contrast can be checked using WebAIM: Colour contrast checker.
- Coloured text should be avoided, but if it is used, it should be combined with other typographical elements to convey meaning, e.g., boldface. Check with your publisher whether they support the use of coloured text. A colour contrast of 4.5:1 will be necessary.
- The following example colours each individually have a colour contrast of at least 3:1 against a white background and are appropriate for key graphical elements. However, if these colours are being used together in a figure where the colours are adjacent or overlapping, additional distinguishing features should be provided to differentiate between the colours or adjacent colours should be altered to meet the 3:1 contrast (see next example).
- Ensure the following figure elements have these colour contrast ratios against adjacent colour(s):
EXAMPLE
- Original version
- Revised accessible version
Source: Y. Len, Chip-firing games, Jacobians, and Prym varieties. In Varieties, Polyhedra, Computation. EMS Series of Congress Reports Vol. 22, EMS Press, Berlin, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4171/ecr/22/6
- Check that colour combinations can be viewed by people who have Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD)
- Example tool: Coblis—Colour blindness simulator.
- In general, avoid the following colour combinations: green & red, blue & purple, and light green & yellow.
- The figure below shows how the above example colours against a white background might be perceived by people with certain types of CVD (protan, deutan, and tritan)
Short alt text for figures inserted using \includegraphics
- Short alt text (i.e., 'alternative text' or 'alt text') is behind-the-scenes text that describes the corresponding visual figure to make it accessible to screen readers and braille users. In code, short alt text is the value of the figure's 'alt' field (e.g., see the following bullet).
The LaTeX package graphicx supports alt text using the alt argument of the\includegraphics command as follows:
\includegraphics[alt={plain-text description of image}]{example-image-a}
However, other coding options might apply. Publishers might also request alt text be submitted in a separate document as well as embedded in the LaTex file if any clarity is needed. - The short alt text should contain the following:
- 1–2 sentences about the figure, describing the type of image and a short summary of the key points.
- The recommended character limit for these sentences is 150 characters.
- Do not simply repeat text verbatim that is in the figure title and/or caption.
- A concise reference indicating where within the content the reader can obtain further information about the figure (i.e., in the body text, figure title, and/or figure caption).
- NOTE: Rewrite your body text, figure title, and/or figure caption if they do not provide a sufficiently detailed description of the figure to reference from the short alt text. If you cannot fully describe the figure in the body text for some reason, contact your publisher for information on how to include a longer description elsewhere.
- Alt text examples are provided later in these guidelines.
- 1–2 sentences about the figure, describing the type of image and a short summary of the key points.
- Be as concise as possible while still describing the key information presented in the figure.
- Focus on the key takeaway and describe visual elements only if they are relevant for conveying meaning.
- If your figure consists of several parts, it might make sense to provide alt text for each part (see W3C WAI groups of images). For further guidelines, please check with your publisher.
- Write out symbols and abbreviations to ensure accurate pronunciation by a range of screen readers. For mathematical notation, write it out as if you were reading it aloud in a conference presentation. See the following examples of how to write out math in short alt text. See also the MathJax Speech Converter.
Short alt text for code-generated figures
- Code-generated figures, such as TikZ and PGFPlots, do not currently have an alt text field in LaTeX.
- Check with your publisher how you should provide alt text for your code-generated figures.
- For example, your publisher may ask you to provide the alt text as a comment in the TeX, use a specific tag, or provide the alt text in a separate file.
- If the code-generated figure is relatively simple, e.g., a simple commutative diagram, then include the code as the alt text, provided the code captures the purpose/takeaway of the figure.
- If the code-generated figure is relatively complex with code much longer than a description of the figure's key takeaway, e.g., a complex commutative diagram or a collection of curves on a surface, then include descriptive alt text as per the guidelines above.
Underlying data for complex data plots
For a complex data plot generated by data too lengthy to include as the alt text or in the body text, you may wish to provide this data in a supplemental file. Your publisher might also request this of you at their discretion. Other suggestions from your publisher might include the following:
- If the data set is of a sensible size, include that data in the body text (e.g., in an appendix) for all readers to access.
- If the data set is large and exists someplace linkable (e.g., a webpage), include that link in the body text (e.g., in the figure caption) for all readers to access.
Please contact your publisher for other options or requirements.
Alt text for equations
The publisher will use the equation's LaTeX code and/or MathJax speech-text (e.g., see MathJax Speech Converter) for the equation as alt text. Authors therefore do not need to take any action for equations but should be aware of this.
Acceptable formats for figures inserted using \includegraphics
Below is a list of accepted file types. If needed, contact your publisher for additional accepted file types.
| Type | Acronym | Name | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| VECTOR | EPS | Encapsulated PostScript | Strongly preferred |
| VECTOR | Portable Document Format | Strongly preferred | |
| RASTER | JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group | Acceptable |
| RASTER | PNG | Portable Network Graphics | Acceptable |
Animations/videos and photosensitive epilepsy
To help avoid risk of seizure, animations must not include red flashes, animate with red, or be predominantly red. (See this useful tool: Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT) user guide.)
Further reading and useful resources
- W3C WAI: Complex images
- W3C WAI: Images tutorial
- Accessibility Developer Guide: Knowledge about accessibility
- Accessibility Developer Guide: Colour is not enough
- GBH: Effective practices for description of science content—Digital talking books (NSF-funded project from WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media [NCAM])
- DIAGRAM Center: General image description guidelines
- ACM DIS2023: Creating accessible figures and tables
- Chartability: The Chartability workbook
- ACM SIGACCESS: Describing figures
- Observable: What is high contrast for data visualization? (with examples)
- WebAIM: Contrast and colour accessibility
- WebAIM: Contrast checker
- Accessible Web: WCAG colour contrast checker
- whocanuse: Who can use this colour combination?
- Colblindor: Coblis—Colour blindness simulator
- arXiv: Accessibility at arXiv
- arXiv: LaTeX markup best practices for successful HTML papers
Alt text examples
Alt text example: Flowchart
Source: Numerical Partial Differential Equations, Adler et al, Chapter 1, https://epubs.siam.org/doi/10.1137/1.9781611978285.ch1.
Alt text:
Flowchart showing physics, PDE model, discrete form, and post-processing steps. For further information, see the paragraph beginning "The overall process of CSE..." in Section 1.1.1.
Referenced description in body text:
The overall process of CSE can be viewed as a series of steps that begins with a question from the underlying scientific or engineering application. To answer that question, a mathematical model is developed that must include sufficient physical detail to be reliable, but not so much detail that the simulation is limited by resolving physical effects that have only a small impact on the question at hand. From this mathematical model (which, in the context of this book, we consider to be a governing PDE or system of PDEs with appropriate initial and boundary-value data), a discrete (computational) model is derived and numerical results are computed. These results are, typically, postprocessed to a quantitative answer to the posed question. In computational models naturally incorporated to improve physical fidelity and numerical accuracy once initial results are obtained.
Alt text example: Graph
Source: Numerical Partial Differential Equations, Adler et al, Chapter 1, https://epubs.siam.org/doi/10.1137/1.9781611978285.ch1.
Alt text:
Wave propagation graph showing u of x t equals g of x minus a t and u of x 0 equals g of x. For further information, see the caption and the paragraph beginning "Hence, the linear advection solution..." in Section 1.2.2.
Referenced description in body text:
Alt text example: 3D plot
Source: Numerical Partial Differential Equations, Adler et al, Chapter 1, https://epubs.siam.org/doi/10.1137/1.9781611978285.ch1.
Alt text:
Two 3D surface plots showing function u of x y with axes x, y, and u of x y. For further information, see the paragraph beginning "We consider two specific examples..." in the section entitled "Elliptic".
Note: This example features a figure that was published before these accessibility guidelines were in use. If this content were to be published now, the author would need to ensure the referenced description in the body text also describes the right panel of the figure.
Alt text example: Geometric shapes and lines 1
Source: Image, caption, and referenced description from June Barrow-Green, Jeremy Gray, and Robin Wilson, The history of mathematics: a source-based approach. Vol. 2, AMS/MAA Textbooks, vol. 61, MAA Press, Providence, RI, 2022. MR4567739
Alt text:
Diagrammatic representation of the setup for Leibniz's argument. See details in the caption and the first paragraph of Subsection "Leibniz on the Fundamental Theorem of the Calculus" in Section 4.4.
Referenced description in body text:
Alt text example: Geometric shapes and lines 2
Source: Image, caption, and referenced description from Ale Jan Homburg and Jürgen Knobloch, Bifurcation theory, Graduate Studies in Mathematics, vol. 246, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 2024. MR4815036
Alt text:
Diagram of strips D subscript n and D subscript n plus 2 that are mapped in a horseshoe shape by Pi. See details in the caption and the first paragraph following the proof of Lemma 4.31.
Referenced description in body text:
Alt text example: Multiple graphs
Source: Bogdan Nica: B. Nica, A Brief Introduction to Spectral Graph Theory. EMS Textbooks in Mathematics Vol. 20, Eur. Math. Soc., Zürich, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4171/188
Alt text:
Two tree graphs, called capital T sub 3, 3 and capital T tilde sub 3, 3.. For more information, see the paragraph following Exercise 1.2.
Referenced description in body text:
Note: For the location of referenced descriptions in the alt text, some publishers discourage the use of directional terms (like above/below) in reference to the figure location. Sometimes figure location can change within the body text when producing an accessible version of the text. Please check with your publisher for further details.
