What is Braille?
Braille uses a combination of six dots, in two parallel lines of three, in a cell seven millimetres by four millimetres. From these six dots are derived sixty-three combinations forming the alphabet, figures, punctuation and abbreviations.

Braille was first written by hand with a small hand frame. A stylus was pushed through the holes in the frame into the paper to form the braille dots.

Louis Braille cooperated with a Monsieur Foucauld, a contemporary of his who was also blind, to develop this first Braille writing machine. By carefully pressing the styluses, both letters and figures could be formed by producing a series of raised dots.

Today, a Perkins Brailler is the most common non-computer method of brailling. On this device, each of the six keys corresponds to one of the six braille dots. To braille a letter, a combination of keys must be pressed to form the correct dots. Braille dots are impressed into the paper from underneath.

Modern technology has now made it possible to produce braille on computers from disk, by scanning or by keying in on a standard keyboard. The document can be edited and then embossed - the braille equivalent of printing. Synthetic voices mean that people who are blind can use talking computers. Some specialised computers have a braille keyboard and display, so the user can key in braille, listen or read the document in braille, print it out or produce it in braille on an embosser. An embosser is like a computer printer thats forms braille dots at high speed.

Sighted or blind braille producers can use a computer program to convert typed text into braille. Scanners transmit text direct from a printed page into the computer. The translation program converts the text into braille that is then checked, corrected and formatted by braille producers. When the braille is ready, it can be stored on a disk for later use or embossed into hard copy.

Braille is versatile. It can be used for text books, assignments and lecture notes, magazines, newsletters, names and addresses, music scores, maths texts, computer manuals, books, personal letters and accounts. Playing cards, telephones and other household equipment can be labelled in braille.

The Braille Alphabet

© Copyright 2002. The Association for the Blind of WA (Inc.)
This page was last modified on Thursday, 7 February 2002