TactiPress translates documents and text into Braille — offline, in your language, following the official standards.
TactiPress's translation engine was developed from scratch using official Braille specifications (UEB, BSKDL, ICEB and others). Every contraction, every rule, every indicator is traceable to its standard.
What it does
- Paste text, get Braille — in seconds, with no internet connection.
- 85 tables in 51 languages, each built to its country's official standard.
- Grade 1 spells every word out; Grade 2 folds common words into contractions.
- Back-translation: Braille becomes readable text again — for letters, notes and forms.
Text and Braille side by side
The same passage, once as plain text and once translated. Grade 1 spells letter by letter, Grade 2 contracts — the third column is clearly shorter.
Source text
The Gettysburg Address, English original
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
UEB Grade 1 (uncontracted)
Letter by letter
⠠⠞⠓⠑ ⠠⠛⠑⠞⠞⠽⠎⠃⠥⠗⠛ ⠠⠁⠙⠙⠗⠑⠎⠎
⠠⠁⠃⠗⠁⠓⠁⠍ ⠠⠇⠊⠝⠉⠕⠇⠝⠂ ⠠⠝⠕⠧⠑⠍⠃⠑⠗ ⠼⠁⠊⠂⠐⠁⠓⠋⠉
⠠⠋⠕⠥⠗ ⠎⠉⠕⠗⠑ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠎⠑⠧⠑⠝ ⠽⠑⠁⠗⠎ ⠁⠛⠕ ⠕⠥⠗ ⠋⠁⠞⠓⠑⠗⠎ ⠃⠗⠕⠥⠛⠓⠞ ⠋⠕⠗⠞⠓ ⠕⠝ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠉⠕⠝⠞⠊⠝⠑⠝⠞⠂ ⠁ ⠝⠑⠺ ⠝⠁⠞⠊⠕⠝⠂ ⠉⠕⠝⠉⠑⠊⠧⠑⠙ ⠊⠝ ⠠⠇⠊⠃⠑⠗⠞⠽⠂ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠙⠑⠙⠊⠉⠁⠞⠑⠙ ⠞⠕ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠏⠗⠕⠏⠕⠎⠊⠞⠊⠕⠝ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠁⠇⠇ ⠍⠑⠝ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠉⠗⠑⠁⠞⠑⠙ ⠑⠟⠥⠁⠇⠲
UEB Grade 2 (contracted)
With contractions
⠠⠮ ⠠⠛⠑⠞⠞⠽⠎⠃⠥⠗⠛ ⠠⠁⠙⠙⠗⠑⠎⠎
⠠⠁⠃⠗⠁⠓⠁⠍ ⠠⠇⠔⠉⠕⠇⠝⠂ ⠠⠝⠕⠧⠑⠍⠃⠻ ⠼⠁⠊⠂ ⠼⠁⠓⠋⠉
⠠⠋⠳⠗ ⠎⠉⠕⠗⠑ ⠯ ⠎⠑⠧⠢ ⠽⠑⠜⠎ ⠁⠛⠕ ⠳⠗ ⠐⠋⠎ ⠃⠗⠐⠳ ⠿⠹ ⠕⠝ ⠹ ⠒⠞⠔⠢⠞⠂ ⠁ ⠝⠑⠺ ⠝⠁⠰⠝⠂ ⠒⠉⠧⠙ ⠔ ⠠⠇⠊⠃⠻⠞⠽⠂ ⠯ ⠙⠫⠊⠉⠁⠞⠫ ⠞⠕ ⠮ ⠏⠗⠕⠏⠕⠎⠊⠰⠝ ⠞ ⠁⠇⠇ ⠍⠢ ⠜⠑ ⠉⠗⠂⠞⠫ ⠑⠟⠥⠁⠇⠲
Try it yourself
Public-domain texts translated with the en-ueb-g1 and en-ueb-g2 tables. Compare uncontracted and contracted output as Unicode Braille or BRF.
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln, 1863 · 286 words · public domain
- Source text (.txt, 1,5 KB)
- UEB Grade 1 — Unicode Braille (4,0 KB) · BRF (1,5 KB)
- UEB Grade 2 — Unicode Braille (2,7 KB) · BRF (1,1 KB)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — Ch. I
Lewis Carroll, 1865 · ca. 2 200 words · public domain
- Source text (.txt, 12 KB)
- UEB Grade 1 — Unicode Braille (30 KB) · BRF (12 KB)
- UEB Grade 2 — Unicode Braille (22 KB) · BRF (9,1 KB)
Unicode Braille (U+2800–U+28FF) displays in any program; BRF is the format embossers read directly.
Privacy & Accessibility
Complete Privacy
Your text and documents never leave your device — all braille translation runs locally. Only license activation for TactiPress Pro briefly contacts our server; TactiPress Free needs no licence key and never contacts it. See the privacy policy for details.
Built for Accessibility
Developed by a blind engineer, designed for full VoiceOver and NVDA compatibility from the ground up. Every screen, button, and table is reachable and labelled without a mouse.
The macOS app
Built with the native Cocoa controls — traffic-light window buttons, the system menu bar and full VoiceOver support.
Platforms
- Windows 10/11 (x64, ARM64)
- macOS 12+ (Universal Binary)
- Linux (x64)
- iOS and Android (via Flutter binding)
Tip: On Linux, install the AppImage, deb, or rpm package — the AppImage updates itself automatically.
For developers
TactiPress ships with a C API wrapper and ready-to-use bindings for the most common platforms:
- Python — scripting, automation, data pipelines
- C# — .NET applications and Windows development
- Swift — macOS and iOS native apps
- Flutter/Dart — cross-platform mobile apps
Accuracy Highlights
TactiPress ships 84 translation tables covering 51 languages. Every table is implemented from the official Braille standards and checked against a curated gold corpus.
- Tables checked
- 84
- Languages
- 51
- Status (stable / beta / alpha)
- 42 / 36 / 6
- Accuracy against the gold corpus
- 100.0%
Measured against hand-verified gold entries from official Braille standards.
Technical details of the translation engine
- 85 Braille tables across 51 languages with inheritance and shared rules
- Grade 1 (uncontracted) and Grade 2 (contracted) Braille for major languages
- Full Unicode input support including CJK, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Thai, and more
- Multiple output formats: Unicode Braille (U+2800–U+28FF), BRF, BES (Japanese), ASCII Braille, raw dot patterns (6/8-dot), SimBraille
- Back-translation: Braille → readable text
- Context-aware contractions with not_before / not_after / penalty constraints
- Morphology-aware rules: compound words, prefixes, suffixes, fugen-s
- Table inheritance: language variants share a common base table
- Math Braille: Nemeth Code (English), Marburg (German, planned), UEB Technical (planned)
- BRF encoding conversion between German (Eurobraille) and American BRF formats
- Accuracy verified against hand-checked gold entries from official Braille standards
- Optional capitalization indicators — configurable per table and use case
- Language-aware output format dropdown — Eurobraille for Latin scripts only, BES for Japanese tables, Unicode and BRF available universally
Contact
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