Braille Translator

What exactly does the tool translate?

English letters A to Z, digits 0 to 9, and these punctuation marks: . , ? ! ' - : ; ( ) plus spaces and line breaks. Each is mapped to one Unicode Braille character, or two for the parentheses. Everything else, such as quotation marks, &, @, accented letters like é, and non-Latin scripts, is shown as a dot (·) and listed in a note under the output.

How are numbers written?

A number sign (⠼, dots 3-4-5-6) is placed before a run of digits, and then the digits use the cells of the letters a to j, so 1 is ⠼⠁, 2 is ⠼⠃ and 0 is ⠼⠚. One number sign covers consecutive digits, and a comma or full stop between two digits stays inside the number. “2024” therefore becomes ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙.

What happens to capital letters?

A single capital gets a capital sign (⠠, dot 6) before the letter, so H becomes ⠠⠓. A word of two or more capitals, such as NASA, gets a double capital sign once at the start. The tool does not implement the longer capitals-passage indicators used for several capitalised words in a row.

What is the ⠰ that appears between a number and a letter?

When a letter from a to j directly follows a digit, as in 1a, the tool inserts a letter sign (⠰, dots 5-6) so that a, b, c and so on are not read as more digits. The output for 1a is ⠼⠁⠰⠁. Letters k to z need no such sign. Spaces and punctuation end number mode.

Is this Grade 1 or Grade 2 Braille?

It is uncontracted, letter-by-letter output with indicators for numbers and capitals. It makes no contractions, such as single cells for common words, and no short-form words. It also does not apply formatting indicators for italics or bold, or rules for line length and page layout.

Can I emboss or print the result?

The output is Unicode text (the Braille Patterns block), which displays on screen and can be pasted into documents with a suitable font. It is not a file for an embosser, and it has no line-wrapping to cell widths. Anything used by a blind reader, such as a school handout, should be checked by a qualified Braille transcriber.

Can it convert Braille back to text?

No. The translator only goes from text to Braille. Reading Braille characters back would also need to resolve the number, capital and letter signs and, for contracted Braille, the many context-dependent contractions, none of which this tool does.

What does the dot-position reference show?

With the option on, it prints each letter’s raised dots as numbers 1 to 6 in a 6-slot string, for example c is 14····. Dots are numbered down the left column (1, 2, 3) and then down the right column (4, 5, 6). Each pattern matches the Unicode character printed beside it.