World Braille Day 2025
4 January 2025
To celebrate World Braille Day on 4 January, we invited a braille expert to share their fascinating insights and deep knowledge about this remarkable system of communication.
World Braille Day is celebrated annually on 4 January, coinciding with the birthday of Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille system.
This day serves to honour his contributions and raise awareness about the importance of Braille as a means of communication for individuals living with sight loss.
Our expert, who is knowledgeable on all things braille, has very kindly shared key insights into the world of braille, including why it’s so important, how it’s made, and more!
What is braille?
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Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols. Braille (named after its inventor in 19th century France, Louis Braille) is used by blind and partially sighted people to read the same books and periodicals as those printed in a visual font.
Why is braille so important / useful?
Braille has transformed the lives of blind people since it’s invention in the 1800s. It has given the braille reader independence and a much easier and quicker way to read text, compared to the previous method of raised print on a page.
Braille can be used on so many resources in daily life, e.g. labelling of food, cans and DVDs. Medicines already have braille on the box.
Many lifts have braille numbers; even the stop button on the bus has “S” in braille. You may also find museums have descriptions in Braille.
How does braille compare to other accessibility tools, like screen readers or audio guides?
Modern technology is helping the partially sighted / blind reader with talking texts, screen readers, talking emails and speech recognition software, which can be more efficient than reading and writing braille.
However, the user is no longer using punctuation, spelling, grammar and page layout. They are talking and listening, so losing their literacy skills.
Printed braille does not rely on digital technology, which can be inaccurate or unreliable.
How do you create braille?
To create Braille documents a Braille translation programme (Duxbury) is used with a Braille embosser (Index).
Braille embosser
I also use a Perkins Brailler, which is simply a braille typewriter, should I require adhesive labels or messages on cards.
Briefly, to transcribe a document into braille I need to prepare the document in a word processor and check for unusual symbols, page layout and tables. Sometimes I may need to include a description in braille for an image or diagram.
Braille software programme
This is then put into the Braille translation software and the type of braille is chosen.
Once translated, the whole document needs to be checked for accuracy and page layout; this is to make it as accessible as possible for the braille reader.
The document is then sent to the embosser and printed, which can be single or double-sided.
Tactile diagrams can also accompany the braille text using a special swell paper (Zychem).
Tactile diagram
The paper swells up wherever the ink appears on the page. This occurs when the paper is fed through a special heater.
What is one fact about braille that you wish more people knew?
There is more than 1 type of braille.
Uncontracted or grade 1 braille is the simplest form of braille. Each word would have an individual braille character for each letter.
Contracted or grade 2 braille is more complex and uses symbols to represent a series of letters or whole words, similar to shorthand. This makes it quicker to read and has more information on a page, however it is more difficult to learn.
I always need to ask the braille reader what type of braille they prefer.
