Braille Converter

How a Braille cell encodes a character

Braille represents every character with a single cell: a grid of six dot positions in two columns of three. The positions are numbered down the left column first — dot 1 top-left, dot 2 middle-left, dot 3 bottom-left — then down the right column — dot 4 top-right, dot 5, dot 6 bottom-right. Any combination of those six dots being raised or flat gives a distinct pattern, and six positions yield 2⁶ = 64 possible cells. The letter a is just dot 1; b is dots 1 and 2; c is dots 1 and 4. This tool converts your text into these patterns, renders each one as a real character, and shows a dot diagram so you can see exactly which positions are filled.

Grade 1 versus Grade 2

This converter produces Grade 1 (uncontracted) Braille, where every printed letter maps to one cell, one-to-one. That is the form used for teaching, for labels, and for anyone learning to read by touch. Real-world books and signage usually use Grade 2, which adds hundreds of contractions — a single cell can stand for a whole word like the or a common letter group like -ing — to save space and speed reading. Grade 2 is not covered here, so do not expect this output to match a contracted braille publication character for character; it matches the literal spelling instead.

The Unicode trick that makes it display

The reason these cells render as crisp characters in any modern browser is a deliberate piece of Unicode design. The Braille Patterns block runs from U+2800 to U+28FF, and the bits of each code point map directly onto the six (or eight) dots. Internally the tool stores each cell as a 6-bit number where bit 0 is dot 1, bit 1 is dot 2, up to bit 5 being dot 6, then adds that number to the base 0x2800. So the letter a (dot 1 = binary 000001 = 1) becomes U+2801, which is the glyph ⠁. This is why you can copy the output and paste it into almost any document and it stays intact — these are standard text characters, not images.

The two indicators: numbers and capitals

Braille reuses the same ten cells for the digits 1–0 that it uses for the letters a–j. To tell them apart, a number indicator cell (⠼, dots 3-4-5-6) is placed in front of a run of digits; everything after it is read as numbers until a non-digit appears. Likewise a capital indicator (⠠, dot 6) precedes a capital letter. This tool inserts both automatically. So the text A1 does not become two cells — it becomes four: capital indicator, a, number indicator, 1. Understanding this prevents the surprise of seeing more cells in the output than letters in your input.

A worked example: "Hi 5"

Type Hi 5 and the converter emits, in order: the capital indicator ⠠ (because H is uppercase), then h ⠓ (dots 1-2-5), then i ⠊ (dots 2-4), then a blank space cell, then the number indicator ⠼, then the cell for 5 ⠑ (dots 1-5, the same cell as the letter e). Hover any cell and the tool shows its dot diagram and the original character it came from, so this expansion is fully traceable. The reverse field runs the whole process backward: paste Braille Unicode in and the decoder tracks the capital and number indicators to reconstruct Hi 5.

Practical tips

• Use the Print button for tactile production, not screen reading. Printing opens a clean large-character layout with the original text underneath. Note that an ordinary inkjet prints the shapes of the dots, not raised dots — producing genuinely readable physical braille requires an embosser or special swell paper. The print view is for proofing and for sighted reference.
• Check ambiguous cells against the reference table. A few patterns are shared: the cell for the digit 5 is identical to the letter e, and they are told apart only by the preceding number indicator. The reference table lists every supported letter, digit, and punctuation mark with its dots and code point.
• Copy the Unicode, not a screenshot. The Copy button gives you the actual ⠿ characters, which stay selectable and searchable in any document — far more useful than an image of them.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the output is contracted braille. Because this is Grade 1, the word the comes out as three separate cells, not the single-cell contraction a fluent reader would expect. For braille meant to match published books, you need a Grade 2 transcriber.
• Pasting non-Braille characters into the reverse field. The decoder only interprets code points in the U+2800–U+28FF range; ordinary letters or emoji pasted in are passed through unchanged, which can make the decoded text look scrambled.
• Expecting full punctuation coverage. The tool handles common marks — comma, period, question mark, and a handful more — but specialised symbols and contracted punctuation aren't included, so a complex passage may lose some marks in translation.