How do you write your text in braille?

How it works

Braille writes each letter as a cell of up to six raised dots in two columns of three. This tool writes Unified English Braille (UEB), the code English-speaking countries agreed on, in its uncontracted form (grade 1): every letter has its own cell. The Unicode braille characters it produces can be copied into documents, labels and braille displays.

Some cells have more than one job, so signs tell them apart. The first ten letters, a to j, are also the digits 1 to 9 and 0 when the number sign (dots 3456) comes first. The number sign keeps counting through digits, commas and full stops, so 1,000 needs it once, and a letter from a to j right after a number needs the letter sign (dots 56): 3b is the number sign, 3, the letter sign and b. A capital letter gets dot 6 in front; a whole capitalised word gets it twice, and three or more capitalised words in a row get it three times and an end sign.

The rules come from The Rules of Unified English Braille (2013) of the International Council on English Braille. Contracted braille (grade 2), which shortens common words, is not covered, and neither is mathematics, music, accents or computer braille.