Format overview
| Format | What it looks like | When to use |
|---|---|---|
unicode |
⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕ |
Default. Readable anywhere with a Unicode font |
brf |
HELLO |
North American ASCII Braille, for US/Canada embossers |
dzb-brf |
HELLO (different mapping) |
European (Eurobraille/DZB) embossers |
ios-brf |
HELLO (uppercase) |
iOS Braille Screen Input |
ascii |
hello |
Same mapping as BRF but always lowercase |
dots |
125 15 123 123 135 |
Dot numbers — useful for teaching or debugging |
simbraille |
:hello |
liblouis-compatible ASCII art, for diffs |
| BES | (binary) | Japanese embossers (Nippon Telesoft) and SAPIE library |
BES is a binary file format (.bes) available only in the desktop
app's Text tab when a Japanese table is selected. See the BES format
specification under docs/specs/BES_FORMAT.md in the source repository
for full details.
Which format is available depends on the selected language
The desktop app automatically adjusts the output format dropdown based on the language of the selected Braille table:
| Language category | Unicode | BRF (American) | BRF (Eurobraille) | BES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latin-script languages (English, German, French, Spanish, …) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
Japanese (ja) |
✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Other non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Arabic, Indic, …) | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
Why Eurobraille is Latin-only: Eurobraille embossers are European devices designed for Latin-script Braille. Their ASCII encoding is not meaningful for scripts with different glyph conventions.
Why Japanese gets BES instead: BES is the standard distribution and embosser format in Japan (SAPIE library, Nippon Telesoft devices). Japanese users with European embossers can still use BRF (American) — Nippon Telesoft embossers accept it as an alternative input mode.
eBraille export and import
eBraille is a packaged Braille book format (zip container with Unicode Braille content, metadata, and navigation). BrailleKit can read and write it directly.
Typical flow:
- Prepare your source as Markdown or plain text.
- In the desktop app: Document tab → Export eBraille, fill in title and author, choose the table.
- Open the resulting
.ebrlon any eBraille-capable reader.
Command-line equivalent:
braillekit_cli export-ebraille \
--title "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" \
--creator "Jules Verne" \
--table en-ueb-g2 \
--input journey.md \
--output journey.ebrl
Next steps
- Accessibility features — screen reader and keyboard-only workflows.
- Troubleshooting — fixing format mismatches.