Braille translator

How braille works

Braille represents each character with a cell of up to six raised dots in two columns of three. Louis Braille published the system in 1829. The first ten letters, a to j, use only the top four dots; k to t add the bottom-left dot; u to z add both bottom dots, except w, which was added later for English. Because there are only 63 patterns, braille uses indicators: ⠠ before a letter makes it a capital, and ⠼ before letters a–j turns them into digits 1–0.

This translator writes grade 1 (uncontracted) Unified English Braille, letter by letter. Most printed English braille uses grade 2, which adds contractions for common words and letter groups.

Worked example

Hi 42 → ⠠⠓⠊⠀⠼⠙⠃: the capital sign, h (dots 1-2-5), i (dots 2-4), a blank cell, the number sign, then d (= 4) and b (= 2).

Display, not embossing

The output uses Unicode braille characters, which show the dot patterns on screen and in documents. Screen-reader users read braille on refreshable displays driven by the screen reader itself.

The page removes accents, then writes each letter as its UEB braille cell, adding the capital indicator ⠠ before uppercase letters and the numeric indicator ⠼ at the start of each run of digits, which reuse the cells of a to j. Spaces become the blank braille cell and common punctuation uses its UEB cell. Text made only of Unicode braille characters is translated back to letters. The output is Unicode, so you can paste it into documents and messages. Everything runs in your browser.