Braille Promotion

EBU promotes braille and braille literacy as essential tools for the autonomy of blind and partially sighted individuals.

EBU video - the importance of Braille

On the occasion of World Braille Day, 04/01 2023, EBU released a new video emphasizing the ongoing importance of Braille for our community. A scene-by-scene description is also available (word). For full information on the devices and techniques used in the video, there is a corresponding article on our livingbraille forum.
The video is also available in Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish.

November 2023 - the EBU Braille working group hosted a webinar on November 7th to present the results of its work and on-going projects.

In September 2023 EBU issued an important position paper on Access to Reading and Using Braille – a matter of the future. The position paper clearly states the situation concerning braille use and states also important recommendations for all members to consider within the frame of their respective national situation and try to promote braille and its usage in each country. Other languages of the document are available on the Livingbraille forum, in the article European Blind Union issued a Position paper about braille..

In 2022 we started the Living Braille Forum.

In 2019, we produced a Focus newsletter on the importance of Braille, also available in French, German and Spanish. We also carried out an activity to collect good practice in the area of Braille teaching as well as evidence of the importance of Braille literacy, you can also find a list of Braille Authorities in European Countries.

You will also find below important information on Accessible Pharmaceutical labelling and also some other online Braille resources.

The EBU livingbraille forum

(April 2022) EBU has launched a new online platform for information, exchange and discussion about all Braille related topics. EBU invites all Braille experts to share their experiences on livingbraille.eu.

  • Are you new to Braille and want to grasp the idea of dots on paper or on a braille display?
  • Are you interested in methods of Braille teaching and training?
  • Do you want to get to know something about new devices using Braille to communicate with a user?
  • Do you wish to obtain inspiration about Braille games or toys for your visually impaired child or pupil at school?
  • Are you an expert or do you have special experience with using Braille to share with others?

If you register, you can even comment and discuss the topics and posts from other users and add further information. If you register and create an account, you can publish your own posts. Everybody is invited to add posts to enrich this European Braille beehive.

livingbraille.eu is hosted by the EBU, supported by the European Commission and organised by the working group of the EBU on Braille.

Braille Teaching and Literacy

Over 2016 and 2017, an EBU expert group looked into the importance of Braille literacy and current barriers (technical, financial, psychological, etc.) to its development, in particular for young persons.

In 2016, the expert group collected data on Nordic countries through a desk study, a survey and a workshop. In 2017, the expert group broadened the scope of the study with a view to collecting and compiling knowledge, applied practices and experience on braille training and production of teaching materials in the field of braille usage. A questionnaire was therefore circulated in Austria, Estonia, France and Italy and fact-finding visits to experts in the same countries were carried out.

All the above resulted in a final report (2018) detailing the results of the above mentioned survery and fact-finding visits. The report includes examples of good practice in the teaching and use of Braille and a series of multi-faceted recommendations resulting from the surveys and work over the two years. The main recommendations from this report have now been translated into Dutch, French, German, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukranian (2022). This activity was led by EBU’s member in Denmark, DAB (Danish Association of the Blind).

Braille Authorities in European Countries

The Braille authority of a country is the organisation, body or committee which determines the rules of the braille code for the language or languages spoken in this country. In the case that the same language is spoken in more than one country, the braille authority may be responsible for more than one country.

This list of the braille authorities was established to give you the opportunity to contact them and to exchange on braille codes in different languages. We should point out that this document is a work in progress; any additions, corrections and comments are most welcome, and should be sent to the EBU Office. (updated 2022)

Accessible Pharmaceutical Labelling

(latest update 1/2019) The European Blind Union has worked across its member states and with the pharmaceutical and packaging industries, alongside its involvement with the CEN standard development for braille on packaging and leaflets, and has developed a range of information to help the industry to comply with EU Directive 2004/27/EC.

  • After more than 4 years of deliberation and negotiation, during 2010 a European standard was adopted for braille on medicinal packing. This means that the industries involved have more specified values and procedures to follow when providing information in braille on the outer packaging. This will include the name, strength and in some cases, the form of the medicine.
  • Another outcome of the standardization process is a piece of scientific research undertaken by the University of Birmingham (UK) and sponsored by blindness agencies and the pharma-packaging industry. The findings contributed to the requirements included in the standard. The research investigates the correlation between the height of braille dots and the readability of the information by braille users. The dependence between the height of dots and the degree of security with which the braille user could identify the product is described in a robust and useful way, as is the effect of braille on the readability of underlying printed information for sighted people.
    The full research report is available online in pdf format.
  • PHARMABRAILLE. Another outcome of the standardization work also worth noting is the establishment of a braille symbol database. The pharmabraille website  contains a wealth of useful information about braille of primary relevance for the pharmaceutical industry. They need the information to ensure that the signs placed on the packs are correct, and hence useful for the full intelligibility of the information in all European countries.

The database includes an EBU recommended braille character set and a list of countries who have agreed to use it for pharmaceutical packaging, together with EBU guidance for presenting common abbreviations, numbers and so on. Furthermore, as these guidelines are not mandatory for the member countries, the specific literary braille code in the various European countries can also be found in the database. All of the tables and the braille information on this website are given in graphical formats but also in formats that are fully accessible for braille readers/users with a visual impairment.

Through an annual subscription fee, organizations gain access to crucial information to make the braille on medicine packaging fully usable in your country. Free subscriptions are available to non-profit organizations in the vo

Blindness agencies: The tables are not fully complete due to a lack of full responses from a number of countries. For this reason, we are urging all the braille authorities or organizations of the blind in each country firstly to check the website for the EBU recommended code, guidelines, their own country codes, and their position on acceptance of the EBU code and guidelines, and to notify us of amendments. Secondly, to help us keep the database up-to-date, we would value your help by checking the database on an ongoing basis, e.g. every six months, and informing us of any changes in your national braille code. In both cases, please notify us by email at enquiries@pharmabraille.com.

Pharmaceutical companies: If you have questions about the presentation of braille which are not yet addressed by the EBU guidance, please email us with examples, and we'll do our best to provide guidance through consultation with our experts, and update the guidance with similar examples. Please email us at enquiries@pharmabraille.com.

We aim to have the most updated information across Europe on existing literary braille as possible. Updates will be notified to all registered users of the site, and each page will specify the date of the last update.

Other Braille resources