UEB Braille Chart Available to Download

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Disclaimer

This braille chart is meant for Summary Reference Only. This means that the chart does not even begin to tell the whole story. For example, braille contractions largely follow pronunciation. The th contraction is used in think, but not in pothole. Its use in pothole would suggest to a braille reader that the th sound is found in pothole. Words starting with "be", "ded", "den", and "der" are especially tricky. It is precisely for this reason that braille production software and braille transcribers are so useful: these rules are very subtle and difficult to master.

Any person producing quality braille to meet contract standards should consult experts and not this or any other braille chart.

Explanation

This chart tries to convey as much of the braille rules as possible, while still being relatively simple. All single word contractions which are represented in braille as a single letter (and a few other contractions) in braille are underlined. That means that in order to be contracted in braille, these words must be isolated from other words. You cannot use the "can" contraction in "Duncan".

The little house symbol is used in several different ways in these tables to reflect different rules and situations. The house symbol shows other text. This symbol is used to show which contractions can be used only in the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Looking at this chart, we see that "dis" needs to be at the beginning of a word, "ff" needs to be in the middle of a word, and that "ness" needs to be at the end of a word. The double house symbol adjacent to punctuation marks stands for text, making it possible to show the opening and closing parenthesis in a single entry.

UEB stands for Unified English Braille, which is a project of the International Council on English Braille.

At the time of this writing, UEB has been adopted by all English-speaking nations.

UEB braille is designed to remove braille ambiguities, and to be closer to the underlying inkprint. Nine contractions of BANA and BAUK braille are eliminated: ally, ation, ble, by, com, dd, into, o'clock, and to. The punctuation and composition signs are revamped almost entirely.

Please note that for space reasons, we have chosen to show the italic sign(s), but not those for boldface, or for underlining. Please read more about UEB Braille from additional sources to fully understand this braille code.