Learn
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 questions people ask most.
Guides
What braille is, and what it is not
Braille is a tactile writing system, not a language. Here is what that distinction actually means in practice.
Grade 1 and Grade 2 braille: what actually changes
Grade 1 spells everything out. Grade 2 uses contractions. Here is when each is used and why Grade 2 exists at all.
How to read braille by touch
Reading braille visually and reading it with your fingers are different skills. This is how tactile reading is actually taught.
How braille is written: slate, stylus, writer and embosser
Four ways braille gets onto paper, and why the oldest one still writes right to left.
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 capital-sign rule most signs get wrong.
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
Four questions about braille with numerical answers that were not published anywhere: how accurate a free translator actually is, how many pages a book becomes, 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 on every build — 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 capital-letter rule that most signs get wrong. Every figure is checked against the standard's own text on each build.