Braille ASCII (or more formallyThe North American Braille ASCII Code, also known asSimBraille) is a subset of theASCIIcharacter set which uses 64 of theprintable ASCIIcharacters to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dotbraille. It was developed around 1969 and, despite originally being known as North American Braille ASCII, it is now used internationally.

Braille ASCII uses the 64 ASCII characters between 32 and 95 inclusive. Allcapital letters in ASCII correspond to their equivalent values in uncontractedEnglish Braille. Note however that, unlike standard print, there is only one braille symbol for each letter of the alphabet. Therefore, in Braille, all letters arelower-case by default, unless preceded by a capitalization sign (⠠dot 6).

The numbers 1 through 9 and 0 correspond to the lettersa throughj, except that they are lowered or shifted lower in the Braille cell. For example,⠉dots 1-4 representsc, and⠒dots 2-5 is3. The other symbols may or may not correspond to their Braille values. For example,⠌dots 3-4 represents/ in Braille ASCII, and this is the Braille slash, but⠿dots 1-2-3-4-5-6 represents=, and this is not theequals sign in Braille.

Braille ASCII more closely corresponds to theNemeth Braille Code for mathematics than it does to the English Literary Braille Code, as the Nemeth Braille code is what it was originally based upon.

If Braille ASCII is viewed in aword processor, it will look like a jumbled mix of letters, numbers, and punctuation. However, there are severalfonts available, many of them free, which allow the user to view and print Braille ASCII as simulated braille, i.e. a graphical representation of braille characters.

Braille ASCII was originally designed to be a means for storing and transmitting six-dot Braille in a digital format, and this continues to be its primary usage today. Because it uses standard characters available oncomputer keyboards, it can be easily typed and edited with a standard word processor. Many Braille embossers receive their input in Braille ASCII, and nearly all Braille translation software can import and export this format.

Most institutions which produce Braille materials distribute BRF files. BRF is a file that can represent contracted or uncontracted (i.e. grade 1 or grade 2)Unified English Braille,English Braille and non-English languages.^[1] BRF files contain plain Braille ASCII plus spaces,Carriage Return,Line Feed, andForm Feed ASCIIcontrol characters. The spaces, Carriage Returns, Line Feeds, and Form feeds are sufficient to specify how the Braille is formatted. Previously BRF contained some additional specialized formatting instructions, but now BRF is formatted exactly like Web-Braille/BARD.^[2][3] BRF files can be embossed with abraille embosser or printed, read on arefreshable braille display, or imperfectly back-translated^[4] into standard text^[5][6] which can then be read by ascreen reader or other similar program. Many find BRF files to be a more convenient way to receive brailled content, and it has increasing use as a distribution format.^[7] If a SimBraille font^[8] is downloaded and installed a BRF file can be opened inWordPad,Apache OpenOffice,Microsoft Word,Apple Pages, etc., and the Braille will appear correctly rendered as 2 dimensional, non-tactile, visual 6 dot braille characters when the font is set to SimBraille.

Unicode includes a means for encoding eight-dot braille; however, Braille ASCII continues to be the preferred format for encoding six-dot braille.

The following table shows the arrangement of characters, with thehexadecimal value, corresponding ASCII character, binary notation matching the standard dot numbers (see the image on the left), BrailleUnicode glyph, and general meaning for English (the actual meaning may change depending on context).^[10]

ASCII hex ASCII glyph Braille dots (1 to 6) Braille glyph Unicode Braille glyph English Braille meaning 20 (space) 000000 ⠀ (space) 21 ! 011101 ⠮ the 22 " 000010 ⠐ (contraction) 23 # 001111 ⠼ (number prefix) 24 $ 110101 ⠫ ed 25 % 100101 ⠩ sh 26 & 111101 ⠯ and 27 ' 001000 ⠄ ' 28 ( 111011 ⠷ of 29 ) 011111 ⠾ with 2A * 100001 ⠡ ch 2B + 001101 ⠬ ing 2C , 000001 ⠠ (uppercase prefix) 2D - 001001 ⠤ - 2E . 000101 ⠨ (italic prefix) 2F / 001100 ⠌ st or / 30 0 001011 ⠴ ” 31 1 010000 ⠂ , 32 2 011000 ⠆ ; 33 3 010010 ⠒ : 34 4 010011 ⠲ . 35 5 010001 ⠢ en 36 6 011010 ⠖ ! 37 7 011011 ⠶ ( or ) 38 8 011001 ⠦ “ or ? 39 9 001010 ⠔ in 3A : 100011 ⠱ wh 3B ; 000011 ⠰ (letter prefix) 3C < 110001 ⠣ gh 3D = 111111 ⠿ for 3E > 001110 ⠜ ar 3F ? 100111 ⠹ th

ASCII hex ASCII glyph Braille dots (1 to 6) Braille glyph Unicode Braille glyph English Braille meaning 40 @ 000100 ⠈ (accent prefix) 41 A 100000 ⠁ a 42 B 110000 ⠃ b 43 C 100100 ⠉ c 44 D 100110 ⠙ d 45 E 100010 ⠑ e 46 F 110100 ⠋ f 47 G 110110 ⠛ g 48 H 110010 ⠓ h 49 I 010100 ⠊ i 4A J 010110 ⠚ j 4B K 101000 ⠅ k 4C L 111000 ⠇ l 4D M 101100 ⠍ m 4E N 101110 ⠝ n 4F O 101010 ⠕ o 50 P 111100 ⠏ p 51 Q 111110 ⠟ q 52 R 111010 ⠗ r 53 S 011100 ⠎ s 54 T 011110 ⠞ t 55 U 101001 ⠥ u 56 V 111001 ⠧ v 57 W 010111 ⠺ w 58 X 101101 ⠭ x 59 Y 101111 ⠽ y 5A Z 101011 ⠵ z 5B [ 010101 ⠪ ow 5C \ 110011 ⠳ ou 5D ] 110111 ⠻ er 5E ^ 000110 ⠘ (currency prefix) 5F _ 000111 ⠸ (contraction)

The following shows the "ASCII glyph" under the associated Braille dots pattern from the table above, sorted according to the reverse lexicographical order of "Braille dots" patterns. It may be used to encode the above table. (Note thatUnicode Braille characters are U+2800 through U+283F, with their code points being in reverse lexicographical order of the above table's "Braille dots" column, and that the symbol at top of the first cell is not an ASCII space but the empty Braille symbol U+2800):

Only 64 characters are needed to represent all possible combinations of 6-dot braille (including space), so not all ASCII values are needed for Braille ASCII.

The 26 Basic Latin lower-case letters (a to (z) are not normally used, but might be interpreted as having the same dot patterns as their 26 upper-case equivalents. The 5 otherprintable ASCII punctuation characters (`,{,|,}, and~) are not used and their Braille ASCII rendition is not defined.

Braille ASCII is merely a subset of the ASCII table that can be used to represent all possible combinations of 6-dot braille. It is not to be confused with theComputer Braille Code, which can represent all ASCII values in braille.

• List of binary codes
• Braille Patterns (Unicode)

• "About Braille: Codes, Formats, Computers, and Braille ASCII". Archived fromthe original on January 16, 2006. RetrievedJanuary 5, 2006.
• Early History of Braille Translators and Embossers
• Representing and Displaying Braille
• What's a BRF? (page on National Braille Bookstore)

• Braille
• ASCII

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