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Understanding braille
Background that the reference tables do not cover: where the code came from, how it is read and written, and why it still matters.
Looking for the tables themselves? Start with the alphabet, numbers or Grade 2 contractions — or the frequently asked questions.
Guides
What braille is, and what it is not
A way of writing by touch, not a language. One six-dot cell, 63 patterns, and what five codes make of the same cells.
Grade 1 and Grade 2 braille: what actually changes
Grade 1 writes every letter; Grade 2 adds 182 contractions. The same sentence in both, the nine families, and how much shorter a whole book becomes.
How to read braille by touch
What the research says about reading with the fingers: two hands are faster than one, four ways they share a line, and the letters one dot apart.
How braille is written: slate, stylus, writer and embosser
Slate, braille writer, display and embosser: why a slate is written right to left, what mirroring does to each letter, and the file an embosser reads.
Why braille appears on signs, lifts and medicine boxes
The ADA sets signage braille to the thousandth of an inch. The dimensions, the Grade 2 requirement, and the rule against copying a sign’s capitals into its braille.
How a fifteen-year-old redesigned reading
Braille did not come from a battlefield code, and the man who inspired it was not a soldier at the time. What the sources actually say, and what it explains about the alphabet.
The Perkins Brailler
Prototyped in 1941, sold from 1951, and barely changed since — how the machine was designed and why it lasted.
Measured, not asserted
Six questions about braille with numerical answers, measured here: how accurate a free translator actually is, how many pages a book becomes, which contractions save the most cells, what Grade 2 does to each letter, which shortforms keep their contraction when an ending is added, and where inside a word a contraction may sit. Each is a measurement this site takes — and two further write-ups report what those measurements turned up about the reference tables themselves.
Braille you have to manufacture
Braille on an American sign is a specification down to the thousandth of an inch: dot size, spacing, mounting height, which side of the door, and a rule against copying the sign’s capital letters into its braille. Every figure is checked against the standard's own text.