Braille support

Please make sure you have installed Baraha 7.0 Build 6 or later for creating the Braille documents.

The Braille system, devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Every Braille character or "cell" is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form 64 combinations. To enable any script for Braille, all the characters inlcuding letters, numbers and symbols of the script should be mapped to these 64 cells. There is also a eight-dot Braille but it is not widely used as six-dot Braille.

A Braille cell

For more info on Braille, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille

Braille ASCII

Braille ASCII is a subset of the ASCII character set, which uses 64 of the printable ASCII characters in the range 32-95, to represent all possible dot combinations in six-dot Braille. The Braille ASCII file may also contain control characters along with the Braille ASCII codes. A Braille ASCII file is usually saved as a .BRF or .TXT file and can be opened in any text editor for processing. When viewed in a text editor, Braille ASCII looks like a jumbled mix of letters, numbers, and punctuation. However, there are several fonts available which allow the user to view and print Braille ASCII as simulated Braille. Baraha comes with "BRH Braille" font which can be used for the same purpose.

Braille ASCII standard is supported by various Braille software such as Duxbury, NFBTrans and various Braille hardware such as Braille keyboards and embossers.

Braille ASCII

Bharati Braille

Bharati Braille is the adaptation of the six-dot Braille for the Indian languages. Originally called the Uniform Braille Code for Indian languages, the history of Bharati Braille dates back to the period prior to India's independence. Bharati Braille uses a common encoding standard for all the Indian scripts. However, minor differences do exist among the scripts and hence some Braille cells are used for different characters in different scripts. For numerals and punctuation marks Bharati Braille uses the same encoding as the English Braille.

Bharati Braille Reference Charts 1 2 3 4

Punctuations and Symbols (Based on BANA standard)

For more info on Bharati Braille, please visit http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/disabilities/bh_brl.php

Braille Support in Baraha

Baraha can convert a document containing Indian language text along with English, into a Braille ASCII file. The Braille ASCII file should be opened in software such as Duxbury for embossing. Files that are compatible with Duxbury can be created by choosing the options in the Export --> Braille Settings dialog box.

Baraha uses Bharati Braille encoding for the Indian language text. For English text, it uses Grade 1 encoding and without any Braille contractions.

Some Braille software such as NFBTrans, allow the use of embedded formatting tags, which are used as directives for further processing and embossing of the Braille ASCII file. Formatting tags can be inserted in the document as explained below.

Braille documents can be created as follows.

Creating Braille document using Baraha Editor

A Baraha document can be exported as a Braille ASCII file by using File | Export menu command and Braille ASCII file (BRF) export type. During the export, The red colored English text is copied "as is" to the output file. This feature can be used for embedding formatting tags or ASCII codes directly in the document.  

Creating Braille document using MS Word

The brhbrl.exe command line utility can be used to convert a word document into a Braille ASCII file. The word document may contain English text along with Indian language text. The Indian language text may be either in ANSI (Baraha fonts) or Unicode text. The red colored English text is copied "as is" to the output file. This feature can be used for embedding formatting tags or ASCII codes directly in the document.

The steps for converting a word document to Braille are as follows.

1. Create the document in MS Word.
2. Save the document as a Rich Text File (.RTF) file. For example: sample.rtf
3. Run the brhbrl utility at the command prompt passing the input and output file names.
      c:\> brhbrl.exe sample.rtf sample.brf