Braille Translator

How Grade 1 Braille is built

Every Braille cell has six dot positions, numbered 1-2-3 down the left column and 4-5-6 down the right. Filling different combinations gives 64 possible patterns, which Unicode maps to the block starting at U+2800. Grade 1 (uncontracted) Braille assigns one cell per letter — so a is dot 1 (⠁), b is dots 1-2 (⠃), and so on. Two special prefixes change how the next cell is read: the capital sign (⠠) marks an uppercase letter, and the number sign (⠼) switches the following cells into digits, where a–j stand for 1–0.

A worked example

Encoding Hi 5! walks through every rule:

• H is uppercase, so it becomes capital sign + h: ⠠⠓
• i is a plain letter: ⠊
• a space stays a space
• 5 needs the number sign first, then the cell for 5 (which reuses the e pattern): ⠼⠑
• ! is punctuation: ⠖

The full result is ⠠⠓⠊ ⠼⠑⠖.

Letter reference

Common pitfalls

This tool produces Grade 1 (uncontracted) Braille, not Grade 2, which uses contractions for whole words and common letter groups — so it is great for learning but not a substitute for a certified transcription. The number sign stays in effect until a space or a non-digit cell, so multi-digit numbers like 42 carry a single ⠼ prefix. Fonts that lack the Braille block render the cells as empty boxes; copy the text into a Unicode-aware editor to see the dots correctly.