Six dots, one cell
A braille cell is six positions in two columns of three. Any combination of raised dots makes one character, and Unicode has a ready character for every combination: the Braille Patterns block, U+2800–U+28FF.
So this does not draw a picture, it produces text. ⠁ is a character in its own right, one that copies, searches and pastes like a letter.
The two signs without which it cannot be read
| Sign | What it does | | --- | --- | | ⠼ | digits follow | | ⠠ | the next letter is a capital |
Braille digits are the first ten letters: 1 is written with the same cell
as a. There is no way to tell them apart without ⠼, so the number sign is
placed automatically and dropped at the first non-digit. That makes 2026
into ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠋.
What this page does not do
It does not contract. Real braille books are printed in contracted writing, where a single cell can stand for an entire word. That is a separate body of rules, different per language, and none of it is here. Paste contracted text and the decoding returns nonsense — not because it broke, but because it reads literally.
It does not prepare a file for embossing. An embosser expects a laid-out file that accounts for line width and hyphenation rules. This is not that.
It is not a substitute for learning. It will show you what a word looks like; it will not teach you to read with your fingers.
For another encoding
Next door is Morse code, also both ways and also with a separate Russian table.
Computed in your browser
Nothing is sent anywhere: the table lives in the page, and the translation works offline.
Questions
Is this real braille or a picture?+
Real Unicode characters from the Braille Patterns block, U+2800–U+28FF. Each cell is a combination of six dots encoded as one character, so the result copies as ordinary text and pastes anywhere. It is text, though, not a file for a braille embosser.
Does Russian braille differ from English?+
Yes, they are different alphabets. Some cells coincide — а → ⠁ and a → ⠁ — but they diverge quickly: Russian в is ⠺, the same cell as English w. That is why the alphabet is a switch.
What is grade 1?+
Letter-by-letter writing with no contractions. Real books use contracted braille, where single cells stand for whole words and syllables — it is more compact and faster to read, but carries far more rules. Only grade 1 is here, and feeding it contracted text will decode wrongly.
What are ⠼ and ⠠ for?+
Braille has no digits: ⠼ switches the following cells into number mode, so ⠁ reads as 1 rather than a. ⠠ marks the next letter as a capital. Both are placed automatically.
Can I print this for a blind reader?+
An embosser needs a prepared file and contracted writing by that language's rules, which this page does not do. It is good for seeing what a word looks like, reading back something already written, or making a label out of the characters.