Braille Translator — Text to Braille & Back

How Grade 1 Braille Works

Braille is a tactile writing system read with the fingertips. Every character is a cell of six dots, arranged in two columns of three; raising different combinations of the six dots produces 63 distinct patterns. The first ten letters, a through j, use only the top four dot positions. The next ten, k through t, repeat those same shapes with dot 3 added, and most of the remaining letters add dots 3 and 6. The letter w falls outside the pattern because braille was invented for French, which barely used w when Louis Braille designed the code in the 1820s.

Grade 1 braille, also called uncontracted braille, spells every word out letter by letter — exactly what this translator produces. It is the form new braille readers learn first, and the form used for labeling, short notes, and teaching materials.

Capitals and the Number System

Braille has no separate uppercase alphabet. Instead, a capital indicator (a cell with only dot 6, ⠠) is placed in front of a letter to capitalize it. This translator inserts the indicator before each capital letter and reads it back when decoding.

Numbers are cleverer: braille reuses the letters a–j as the digits 1–9 and 0. A number sign(dots 3-4-5-6, ⠼) placed before the digits tells the reader “the following cells are digits, not letters” until a space ends the number. When a word continues with a letter a–j immediately after digits, a letter sign (dots 5-6, ⠰) switches back to letter mode — the translator handles that automatically too, and the alignment view labels every indicator it adds.

What About Grade 2 (Contracted) Braille?

Most books and signs printed in braille actually use Grade 2 (contracted) braille, which shortens common words and letter groups — “the,” “and,” “-ing,” and nearly 200 others — into single cells or short sequences, with rules that depend on where a group falls inside a word. An honest note: this tool does not produce Grade 2 braille. Faithful contraction requires specialist transcription software, and a wrong contraction is worse than none. Everything here is accurate Grade 1, which every braille reader can read.

How to Use the Braille Translator

1. Type or paste text in the input box — the braille appears instantly below it.
2. Swap direction with the swap button to decode Unicode braille back into plain text.
3. Toggle the alignment view to study how each letter, capital sign, and number sign maps to its cell.
4. Copy or print — copy the braille as Unicode text for documents and messages, or print a large-type study sheet.

Worked Example

The phrase Hello 42 becomes:

⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕⠀⠼⠙⠃

• ⠠ — capital indicator for the H
• ⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕ — h, e, l, l, o
• ⠼ — number sign: the next cells are digits
• ⠙⠃ — the d-cell and b-cell, read as 4 and 2

Frequently Asked Questions