Now the question is is there a way to write clean equations say in a Word document or is it is there a way to write equations and have them evaluated and do actual math processing on them?
Option 1: I did all of the math in university with Word equations. This includes all reports, exams, assignments, practice and stuff. In a Word document, press alt + equals, this will pop-up an equation field. You can then start to type your equation, there are escape codes for pretty much all symbols. Jaws reads the equations pretty well. Two examples.
Example #1: f(x) = x^2 + 2x + 3
1. Press alt + equals to open the equation field
2. Type f(x)
3. Notice that if you press shift + left arrow, you will select the closing parenthesis.
4. Remove the selection and press space after the closing parenthesis. There is apparently no effect, but if you do shift + left arrow again, you will notice that you selected the whole (x) block. This is because parentheses allow you to do blocks in the equations. It's like if pressing space processes the last thing you entered.
5. Type equals, then x^2.
6. If you select three characters on the left, you will select x^2, however, if you press space and select one time to the left, you will notice that you chunked x^2 into a x with 2 as superscript. The caret symbol allows you to put stuff in superscript.
7. Type plus, then 2x, then plus, then 3.
Example #2: integral from x = 0 to T of log in base 2 of x
1. Alt + equals
2. We need the integral symbol, to do that write \int, many symbols can be summoned with the backslash sequence. Then press space to turn \int into the integral symbol.
3. We want x=0 in subscript and T as superscript, so type _(x=0)^T, then space, this will place your cursor into the argument of the integral.
4. Now we want log base 2 of something, type log_2, then space, it will put you in the argument of the log base 2.
5. Type x.
6. Remember that you are in the argument of the log base 2. If you press right arrow, you will be in the argument of the integral again, if you press right arrow again, you will be after the integral.
This is just to give an idea, there is a ton of tips to write equations, but I did that for many years so I found out all of the tricks with trial and error.
You can write pretty much anything, simple integrals, double triple integrals, fractions, superscripts, subscripts, logs, sums, symbols on top of other symbols, matrices of the size you want, logic symbols, set symbols, vectors and so on and so forth. The only symbol I never found was the implication sign, so I did => and never had issues with that.
Option 2: You can do math with matlab. Matlab is a Java program built to do numeric calculations being specially eefficient with matrices. The program is not really accessible, but I got away with it by redirecting log output to a text file, writing my scripts in a text editor and only using matlab by pressing F5 to run the script, then examine the output in the text file that opened automatically.
You can also use a Python interpreter. The package numpy is basically Matlab modules ported to Python. However, this will work pretty well with numeric calculations, but not with symbolic maths, where matlab while not being designed for that does a pretty good job with that. Python can do pretty much all numeric calculations though, it handles complex numbers, linear algebra and so on and so forth.
Anyways, this is how I did it.
Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another. ― Lemony Snicket
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