Version 

Changes

7.0 

July 2025

 

Back-translation in German now distinguishes between "CK" and the capitalization sign (dots 4, 6) when a single vowel precedes the capitalization sign, with or without lowercase dot 6. This means words such as "iPhone" or "eBraille" are now back-translated correctly.

 

Sequences of hyphens and equals signs with a length of 3 or more are now passed through unchanged when converting in either direction.

 

The paragraph sign no longer ends "all-caps" rendering.

 

The indicator character for mathematical Braille notation now only takes effect if it is not immediately followed by blank space.

6.06 

September 2024

 

In German contracted Braille, standalone parentheses, exclamation marks, and question marks before a control character now receive cancellation dot 6, to avoid confusion with single-cell contractions. This can affect text before line or page breaks, and after headings in the table of contents.
Back-translation in German now distinguishes between "CK" and the capitalization sign (dots 4, 6) when a single vowel precedes the capitalization sign, with or without lowercase dot 6.
In German Braille, dot 6 — used to mark units of measurement or lowercase — is now also inserted for lowercase letters following a micro sign µ in mathematical Braille notation.

6.05 

July 2024

 

The text-conversion and back-translation functions can now also process Braille characters in UTF-8 from the Unicode range U+2800 to U+28FF. During text conversion, they are passed through unchanged (transparency mode). During back-translation, they are taken over and back-translated without dots 7 and 8.

6.04 

April 2024
For less-than and greater-than signs, back-translation now takes the context (math or text) into account.
A less-than sign before a punctuation mark is now rendered as a less-than sign rather than an angle bracket.
A question mark within an all-caps word is now also treated as an uppercase letter (question marks can occur as Unicode substitute characters).
During back-translation into uncontracted and contracted Braille, the characters for "ö", "ü", and "ß" were not rendered when they occurred standing alone. Unused characters such as "6", "7", "{", "%", and "&" are now passed through unchanged.

6.03 

July 2023

 

The performance of contracted-Braille translation was sped up through improved indexing (a "best mismatch" algorithm).

 

For character sequences that could be confused with multi-cell contractions, UEB now only sets a "grade 1 sign" when there is an exact match without a plural "s".

 

Back-translation of integer fractions in UEB numeric mode did not work. The same applied to back-translation of the standalone, capitalized word "Were".

 

The uncontracted-Braille indicator character '. incorrectly also took effect at the end of a word in UEB.

 

Spaces before or after a forward slash were removed when a letter was adjacent to only one side rather than both.

 

A question mark at the end of a sentence was incorrectly interpreted as a quotation mark during back-translation into UEB when it was followed by a bracket.

 

Standalone angle brackets in UEB were not rendered correctly when adjacent to arithmetic operators.

 

The translation of mathematical expressions in Nemeth code into UEB was improved.

 

Back-translation in French was improved. Words containing an O with a ligated E, such as "Œuvre", are now translated correctly, as are words ending in "TRE", such as "notre", "votre", etc., including compound words.

 

The new character for internal capitalization (camel case) in German is now only used if every part of the text beginning with a capital letter is at least 3 characters long.

 

The sound groups of uncontracted Braille are now also recognized during back-translation after an apostrophe, when preceded by a cancellation dot or another indicator character.

 

The character sequence "üh" is now rendered with cancellation dot 6, to avoid confusion with the contraction "überhaupt".

 

With bracket expressions using square brackets, a closing bracket could sometimes be dropped.

 

Quotation marks used as the column separator within a CSV file are now mapped correctly to opening or closing quotation marks.

 

When an asterisk is used within words such as "Mitarbeiter*innen" to indicate the gender-neutral form, the contraction for "IN" is now omitted for clarity.

6.02 

April 2022

 

The space between a root sign <pt146> and the radical index preceding it is removed.

 

An en dash between letters is now only recognized as a range dash ("to") if no more than 2 letters precede and follow it.

 

With expressions using round brackets in mathematical Braille notation, spaces were incorrectly removed outside the brackets.

 

Single capital letters such as "A" for "Ampere" were not marked as units of measurement when they occurred at the end of a mathematical inset.

 

Repeating digits in repeating decimal fractions can now be placed in round brackets within mathematical insets, without triggering a repeated number sign.

 

Numbers are now rendered with grouping dots instead of spaces even when preceded by an arithmetic operator.

 

A colon was incorrectly recognized as part of a time expression when surrounded by spaces and followed by a subtraction (confusion with a possible time span).

 

The space between decimal fractions and integer fractions is preserved. The lowercase letters 'a' through 'c' and 'x' through 'y', like 'o' and 'u', are not marked as units of measurement.

 

When the direct dot specification <pt4> precedes an arithmetic operator, the space before the operator within mathematical insets is omitted. This allows the joining dot to be realized for simple fraction notation.

 

Within emphasized (highlighted) text, the hyphen was not recognized as a word boundary, which in certain situations caused unnecessary terminator characters to be inserted.

 

The dollar sign is preserved as a currency symbol during back-translation when it is not followed by a letter.

 

Standalone question marks, exclamation marks, and periods in parentheses now receive cancellation dot 6 in contracted Braille, to avoid confusion with single-cell contractions.

 

The letter "S" with a circumflex accent is now recognized as a foreign-language accented letter and processed correctly. During back-translation, an "S" with indicator dot 4 is now disambiguated between the accented letter and a dollar sign (in the vicinity of numbers).

 

Within mathematical insets, Greek letters can now be specified as units of measurement using an indicator character for a foreign-language inset.

6.01 

October 2017
The standalone number sign is no longer announced with dot 4 in uncontracted Braille and in mathematical context.

6.0 

April 2017
This version supports the German Braille system according to the resolutions of 14 November 2015 in Frankfurt am Main for the first time. This also includes the mathematical Braille notation system in German Braille according to the resolutions of 30 November 2013 in Basel.
This version supports the "Unified English Braille" system according to the 2013 rules of the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) (Second Edition) for the first time.

5.07 

April 2017
Consonant sound groups in uncontracted Braille are no longer recognized as potential units of measurement, and are therefore contracted and rendered in uncontracted Braille without cancellation dot 6 even when they occur standalone.
The range dash between numbers is now no longer incorrectly rendered as a minus sign even when active hyphenation is enabled.

5.06 

April 2016
If a space and then a punctuation mark follow an acronym or a word in permanent capitalization, the space between the character sequence and the punctuation mark is now removed. Previously, the first character of the acronym was incorrectly swallowed.
Character sequences such as "hm", "hmm", "mh", and "mmh" are no longer recognized as potential units of measurement, and therefore no longer receive cancellation dot 6 before a sentence-final period.

5.05 

October 2015
The characters for "cross" and "double cross" (hash) are now rendered in the German module using one or two plus signs.

5.04 

April 2015
A lowercase "x" surrounded by spaces between numbers, or within a mathematical equation, is rendered as multiplication.
A colon surrounded by spaces within a mathematical equation is rendered as division.
A grouping dot for numbers grouped with spaces is now also inserted when the last group of digits precedes a punctuation mark.
If the contraction "IN" follows one or more reference asterisks, it is now separated from the asterisks by a space.

5.03 

October 2013
In English and French, the module now follows the rule that the sign for "series of capitalized words" or "series of emphasized words" is only used starting from four consecutive words in capitals or with emphasis. Previously, it was already used for three consecutive words.

5.02 

October 2011
Dot 6, marking lowercase, is now always placed before lowercase units of measurement, regardless of the contraction grade. A distinction is made here between units of measurement and commonly used abbreviations, for which case is not marked.
For arithmetic operators before numbers at the start of a line, no space is now inserted when arithmetic operators are rendered without an indicator character.
The article sign is no longer incorrectly placed before capitalized words whose initial letter could be confused with a Roman numeral.
Spaces between the German contraction "des" and numbers are preserved.

5.01 

January 2010
Back-translation now also takes the paragraph sign and the article sign into account.
Dates with a 4-digit year are now rendered with the year raised (superscript) and an additional number sign, provided lowered-digit numbers are enabled. This corresponds to the traditional way of writing dates in Braille.
Standalone sound groups of uncontracted Braille are now also used before a sentence-final period, but here announced with dot 6, to avoid confusion with single-cell contractions.

5.0 

October 2009.
The module was extended to include Spanish Braille (uncontracted only). In French, standalone letters are only given a cancellation sign if the contractions represented by that letter are not disabled.
An en dash, which as in English is represented by 2 hyphens, is recognized as such when it appears between 2 words without a space.
The article sign is now also rendered after brackets.
Spaces between numbers and units of measurement are only dropped if the unit of measurement is 4 characters or shorter.
Special rendering of the gender-neutral form with "Innen" within lowercase words.
Punctuation marks before an apostrophe do not receive cancellation dot 6, because the apostrophe can be used as a single quotation mark.
Spaces after a numbering are also preserved when followed by a cancellation dot or capitalization sign.
Back-translation of nouns preceded by an omission dash was improved.

4.04 

May 2009
The rendering of mathematical insets was improved: the sign for "equivalent" (dots 26) can now be entered with a tilde, and the sign for "fraction line" (dots 1256) with a vertical bar, as opposed to the forward slash used for "division".

4.03 

November 2008

 

Word/number combinations that can be used as bullet characters no longer trigger "all-caps" rendering. Character sequences such as "A1", "A2", "B1", "B2", etc., are used to label table cells as in a spreadsheet program, and should not merge with the content of a table cell.
Spaces after a numbering are also preserved when followed by a cancellation or capitalization sign.
Back-translation of nouns preceded by an omission dash was improved, so that contractions at the start of a word are always recognized.
The Swedish Braille table SW850 was added.

4.02 

June 2008

 

Internet addresses in parentheses are now also rendered correctly at the end of a sentence.
The words "he" and "hen" now receive cancellation dot 6 in contracted Braille, to avoid confusion with "hatte" and "hatten".
Protected spaces within commonly used abbreviations are now skipped over. An abbreviation is thus recognized as such despite protected spaces.
Standalone umlauts are now marked with a cancellation dot in contracted Braille.

4.01 

March 2008.

 

Internet addresses can now also contain protected hyphens and minus signs.
The equals sign is rendered without dot 4 in mathematical context.
The new French character table TBFR2007 is now also available as a code table.
A hyphen at the start of a line is now interpreted as a bullet dash rather than an en dash, even with leading spaces.
An "h" between numbers is interpreted as a possible delimiter for time expressions.
Currency amounts with grouped digits may now also end with "." in German.

4.0 

November 2007
This version includes back-translation of contracted Braille for German, English, and French for the first time.
To aid back-translation, cancellation dot 6 is now set for certain commonly used abbreviations, so that they cannot be confused with two-cell contractions. If these cancellation signs (before "Fr", "Mr", "Nr", and "Dr") are not desired, the abbreviations can be added to the exception list for Braille translation.
The following improvements were also made:
Omission dashes after words are now also recognized when followed by a punctuation mark.
Spaces between a percent or per-mille sign and an arithmetic operator are now optionally removed.
Standalone exclamation marks now receive a cancellation dot in contracted Braille.
Grouping dots for numbers are now also inserted when the number ends with a sentence-final period.

3.02 

March 2007

 

Single-cell standalone contractions now end "all-caps" rendering when they are lowercase.
Single capital letters followed by an apostrophe or hyphen are now also recognized as the start of such insets, if the associated word part consists of capital letters.
When punctuation marks in a text are not directly attached to the preceding word but are set off with a space, the space is now removed.
For hyphenated compound words in English and French, "all-caps" was previously announced when both parts of the word were capitalized. Now the capitalization sign is repeated, which matches current rules.
A grouping dot for numbers grouped with spaces is now only inserted if it is a genuine group of digits, rather than a real number or a mathematical expression.
Hyphens in internet addresses do not count as hyphenation breaks. They are therefore not treated as they would be for syllable hyphenation.
When a capital letter occurs within an abbreviation (other than the first letter), it is not treated as an abbreviation, but as mixed case.
The special rendering of the gender-neutral form with "In" (capital "I") at the end of words now also works in the singular.
"So." is now interpreted as the abbreviation for "Sonntag" (Sunday) and is no longer contracted.

3.01 

April 2006

 

Columns of digits are only treated as grouped numbers when a single space separates the numbers.
Simple insets in computer Braille now also end at special characters that cannot occur within URLs (e.g. surrounding brackets or quotation marks).

3.0 

December 2005.
In addition to the German, British, and American systems, the Braille module now also supports French Braille according to the rules of the "Commission Evolution du Braille Français" (CEBF) from 1998 and 2001 (Code Braille Informatique), including partial contraction and Antoine numerals.