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Braille translator: English to braille and back
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Direction: English → braille
Braille
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What this translator does
It turns English text into Unified English Braille, in Grade 1 or Grade 2, and turns braille back into English. It adds the capital and numeric indicators for you, uses the contractions a braille reader expects in Grade 2, and draws every cell with its dots. It runs in your browser and does not store or send what you type.
A translation, not a transcription
The result follows the UEB rules a program can apply. It cannot judge layout, emphasis or the few contraction choices that depend on meaning, which a transcriber makes by hand. Use it to learn, check and practise.
For signs, books, menus, medicine labels or anything a blind person will read by touch, work with a certified braille transcriber.
Grade 1 or Grade 2?
Grade 1 spells out every letter. Grade 2 replaces common words and letter groups with contractions, so the same text is shorter and faster to read. A few of them, translated by the same engine as the tool above:
| Word | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Contraction type |
|---|---|---|---|
| the | ⠞⠓⠑ | ⠮ | Strong contraction |
| and | ⠁⠝⠙ | ⠯ | Strong contraction |
| you | ⠽⠕⠥ | ⠽ | Alphabetic wordsign |
| people | ⠏⠑⠕⠏⠇⠑ | ⠏ | Alphabetic wordsign |
| knowledge | ⠅⠝⠕⠺⠇⠑⠙⠛⠑ | ⠅ | Alphabetic wordsign |
| world | ⠺⠕⠗⠇⠙ | ⠸⠺ | Initial-letter contraction |
| character | ⠉⠓⠁⠗⠁⠉⠞⠑⠗ | ⠐⠡ | Initial-letter contraction |
| children | ⠉⠓⠊⠇⠙⠗⠑⠝ | ⠡⠝ | Shortform |
| because | ⠃⠑⠉⠁⠥⠎⠑ | ⠆⠉ | Shortform |
| braille | ⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑ | ⠃⠗⠇ | Shortform |
Grade 2 is the standard for books and signs in English. Most learners start with Grade 1 and add the contractions once the letters feel natural.
The English braille alphabet
The 26 letters are the same in English and in almost every language written with the Latin alphabet. Each cell has six dot positions: 1, 2 and 3 down the left column, 4, 5 and 6 down the right. A letter is the set of dots raised in that cell.
| Letter | Braille | Dots |
|---|---|---|
| a | ⠁ | 1 |
| b | ⠃ | 1-2 |
| c | ⠉ | 1-4 |
| d | ⠙ | 1-4-5 |
| e | ⠑ | 1-5 |
| f | ⠋ | 1-2-4 |
| g | ⠛ | 1-2-4-5 |
| h | ⠓ | 1-2-5 |
| i | ⠊ | 2-4 |
| j | ⠚ | 2-4-5 |
| k | ⠅ | 1-3 |
| l | ⠇ | 1-2-3 |
| m | ⠍ | 1-3-4 |
| n | ⠝ | 1-3-4-5 |
| o | ⠕ | 1-3-5 |
| p | ⠏ | 1-2-3-4 |
| q | ⠟ | 1-2-3-4-5 |
| r | ⠗ | 1-2-3-5 |
| s | ⠎ | 2-3-4 |
| t | ⠞ | 2-3-4-5 |
| u | ⠥ | 1-3-6 |
| v | ⠧ | 1-2-3-6 |
| w | ⠺ | 2-4-5-6 |
| x | ⠭ | 1-3-4-6 |
| y | ⠽ | 1-3-4-5-6 |
| z | ⠵ | 1-3-5-6 |
Capitals and numbers
| Indicator | Braille | Dots | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capital indicator | ⠠ | 6 | The next letter is a capital. |
| Capitalized word indicator | ⠠⠠ | 6 6 | The whole word is in capitals. |
| Numeric indicator | ⠼ | 3-4-5-6 | The letters a to j that follow are the digits 1 to 0. |
| Digit | Braille | Dots |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ⠼⠁ | 3-4-5-6 1 |
| 2 | ⠼⠃ | 3-4-5-6 1-2 |
| 3 | ⠼⠉ | 3-4-5-6 1-4 |
| 4 | ⠼⠙ | 3-4-5-6 1-4-5 |
| 5 | ⠼⠑ | 3-4-5-6 1-5 |
| 6 | ⠼⠋ | 3-4-5-6 1-2-4 |
| 7 | ⠼⠛ | 3-4-5-6 1-2-4-5 |
| 8 | ⠼⠓ | 3-4-5-6 1-2-5 |
| 9 | ⠼⠊ | 3-4-5-6 2-4 |
| 0 | ⠼⠚ | 3-4-5-6 2-4-5 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Grade 1 and Grade 2 braille?
Grade 1 writes every letter in its own cell. Grade 2, also called contracted braille, adds about 180 contractions: single cells or short groups that stand for whole words or common letter groups, such as ⠮ for “the” or ⠸⠺ for “world”. Grade 2 is what most books, signs and documents in English use, because it is shorter and faster to read.
Which braille code does this translator use?
Unified English Braille (UEB), the code adopted by all eight members of the International Council on English Braille: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The United States moved from the older English Braille American Edition (EBAE) to UEB in 2016, so some older charts and converters still follow EBAE rules.
Can I use this for a sign or a printed document?
Use it to understand and check braille, not to produce braille that someone will read by touch. In the United States, the 2010 ADA Standards require contracted (Grade 2) braille on signs, with rules for dot shape, spacing and placement, and they restrict where capital indicators go. Braille on paper also needs an embosser or a brailler. For anything a blind person will rely on, work with a certified transcriber or a sign maker that follows the standard.
Is braille the same in every language?
No. The six-dot cell is universal, but each language decides what the combinations mean, and the English Grade 2 contractions exist only in English. For Spanish braille, with ñ and accented vowels, use our Spanish braille translator.
Why does a capital letter add a cell?
Braille has no separate uppercase shapes. A capital is marked by the capital indicator, dot 6 (⠠), in the cell before the letter. Two of them in a row (⠠⠠) put the whole word in capitals.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The translation engine runs inside your browser, so what you type never leaves your device.
The engine behind this translator
This page runs liblouis 3.39.0, the open-source braille translation library used by screen readers such as NVDA, with its official Unified English Braille tables, unmodified.
Before publishing, we ran liblouis's own UEB test suite against the exact build this page loads: 215,960 checks, from print to braille and back, all passed. liblouis lists 361 further cases as known issues, so take extra care with unusual layouts, technical notation and emphasis.
liblouis is © the liblouis contributors and is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or later. Licence, source and build notes.
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