Braille to English Translator
Paste braille or type it cell by cell. The decoder checks its answer by translating it back.
Reading braille from a card or a label
You do not need to read braille by touch to check it. Work out each cell’s dots by eye or by feel, enter them one cell at a time, and the decoder reads them as English.
1Find one cell
Dots 1, 2 and 3 run down the left of the cell and dots 4, 5 and 6 down the right. (ICEB 1.1.1) A gap with no dots separates one word from the next.
2Name its raised dots
List the raised dots by number, down the left column and then down the right. The letter h, raised at the top left, middle left and middle right, is dots 1-2-5.
3Enter it, then the next
Open “Pick dots with buttons”, press those dots and add the cell. Or type the numbers into the box with a space between cells and
/between words:6 1-2-5 1-5 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-3-5.4Watch for signs
- A capital is dot 6 ⠠ in front of the letter. (ICEB 8.3.1)
- After the numeric indicator ⠼, the letters a to j are the digits 1 to 9 and 0. (ICEB 6.1)
- A letter on its own, other than a, i or o, takes the grade 1 indicator ⠰ so that it is not read as a whole word. (ICEB 2.6.1, 5.2.1, 5.7.1)
5Check the grade
Grade 2 adds contractions: signs for whole words and for groups of letters. (ICEB 2.5) If the English has whole words where you expected letters, switch the grade: in Grade 2 the cell for b on its own (⠃) is the word “but”.
Three ways to enter braille
Paste it. The decoder reads Unicode braille, the braille characters you can copy from a web page (⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕); Braille ASCII, the plain-text form inside BRF files (,HELLO); and dot numbers (6 1-2-5 1-5 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-3-5). It names the form it read above the English. If it picks the wrong one, choose the form under “Braille is typed as”.
Type it with six keys. Turn on “Type with six keys” and press the keys for one cell together, the way a Perkins brailler works: F D S for dots 1, 2 and 3 under your left hand, J K L for dots 4, 5 and 6 under your right. The page draws the dots you are holding in the corner of the box and adds the cell when you let go of every key. “Change the keys” sets other keys.
Pick the dots. “Pick dots with buttons” adds one cell at a time, for touch screens or for checking a single cell. To see everything one cell can mean, use the braille dot finder.
What the round-trip check shows
The check shows where the engine would write the English differently from the braille you gave it. After decoding, the page turns the English back into braille with the same grade and lines the two up, cell by cell.
Decoding is harder than writing braille: one cell can stand for a letter, a whole word, part of a word or a punctuation mark, depending on the cells around it. The engine writes “LLC” as:
That decodes as “Llc”, and “Llc” turns back into ⠰⠠⠇⠇⠉, one capital indicator shorter. The check marks the missing cell.
A match does not mean the braille was right. An en dash and an em dash share one braille sign, so ⠼⠁⠚⠒⠼⠉⠚⠠⠤⠼⠁⠁⠒⠼⠚⠚ decodes as “10:30—11:00” and still matches (no differences). The check shows that the decoder and the engine agree with each other. A qualified proofreader is still the test of correct braille.
What this does not do
- It decodes literary UEB only. Nemeth Code, music braille, computer braille code and other languages decode wrongly.
- Print that UEB writes one way comes back one way: en and em dashes, straight and curly quotes, and some capitals.
- Braille written with a different transcription choice can decode oddly. The round-trip check points to where.
- It does not read braille from photos, scans or embossed paper.
Questions
What is the difference between Grade 1 and Grade 2 when decoding?
Choose the grade the braille was written in. Grade 2 reads cells as contractions where the rules allow, so ⠃ alone becomes “but”. Grade 1 reads every cell as a letter or symbol, so ⠃ alone is “b”.
Why does the decoded text have odd capitals or punctuation?
UEB writes some print choices the same way. Capitalised words, curly and straight quotation marks, and dashes of different lengths can come back different from the original print. The round-trip check lists the places where your braille and the braille of the English disagree.
Can I decode a BRF file?
Yes. Open the file in a text editor, copy everything and paste it here. A BRF file is Braille ASCII, which the decoder detects. The decoder skips page breaks.
Is the braille I type sent anywhere?
No. Your browser decodes it with the same liblouis engine as the translator, and nothing leaves your device. The privacy policy explains how we make sure of that.