[BlindMath] Braille Input with NVDA

Thu Apr 30 11:06:30 UTC 2026

I agree with everything you propose.  

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Michael Whapples via BlindMath
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 6:35 AM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Cc: Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Braille Input with NVDA

I wouldn't say that is a stupid thing to say, my view is very much along the same line. However I do note for me Braille has always been a second language to me, I learnt large print and touch typing before Braille. I feel this means I am always translating in my head and it feels awkward, I do not natively think in Braille. It may be different for someone who learnt Braille first. Additionally for me there is the issue I learnt contracted Braille prior to UEB, that introduced a load of changes and as I already was well on the 8-dot computer Braille path by that point, UEB has essentially been the death of official contracted Braille codes for my own personal use. We all have different history which may affect our feelings on this, but I do think if ability to communicate widely is a goal then UEB doesn't make much sense (only a small minority of people can read/write, otherwise you are reliant on a limited set of specialist tools or professional transcribers). In contrast as a touchtyping text native, I can use almost any computer (a Dvorak keyboard may challenge
me) to communicate with someone else.

Where I would like to get with a Braille code would be:

* No contractions

* No modes (IE. numbers are their own thing thus getting rid of the number sign).

* 1-to-1 mapping for the most common used characters (IE. in English ASCII in most 8-dot computer codes)

* Multi-cell possible for less frequently used characters.

* Leave formatting and other non-character based things to standard mark up languages like markdown, ASCIIMath, LaTeX, etc.

* Let the user pick and mix the combination of cell encodings and mark up language which suits their case.

* Never store Braille in a file, the conversion should be simple enough and reliable enough to be done as close to the users fingers.

A thought I have had for the representation of characters in Braille is 
something along the line of UTF-8. 8-dot Braille has the 8-dots, every 
possible byte combination can be represented, UTF-8 just extends it into 
the full unicode character set (each cell being the bytes of the UTF-8 
string). UTF-8 possibly is not the best assignments to be human logical 
(eg. Braille unicode characters start at â 0\80 for ⠀ and end 
with â 3f for ⣿). However I think UTF-8 serves as a good 
example of where I am trying to head and at least would still present a 
way of getting the character value for lookup. Also depending upon the 
mark up language some commonly used unicode characters may also be 
possible through that (eg. Greek letters in ASCIIMath or LaTeX).

Michael Whapples

On 30/04/2026 00:22, John Gardner via BlindMath wrote:
> Every once in a while something triggers me to say something really stupid. This conversation has done that. It is stupid for me to even say it. But the really stupid thing is contracted braille. I know history, I know how this happened, but it doesn't make it right. Braille is just way too complicated and blind kids' education is the victim. Most intelligent people in blindness education know that if we had only to teach kids uncontracted braille, we would have time to teach them other things, things like math, history, literature. Things they don't learn because they spend so much time in special education classes learning that b is sometimes b and sometimes but and sometimes 2 and... Intelligent people however also know that there isn't a damned thing that can be done about it, so they just shut up and do their best . We had a golden chance to do something about it a few decades ago, and we very nearly did it, but in the end we blew it and developed something called Unified English Braille. Which is braille and is English to be sure but is no more unified and at best marginally easier than the system it replaced.
> If we had a braille alphabet (not a code) similar to uncontracted braille but with numbers, blind people's lives would be so much easier. Don't give me crap about saving paper and reading faster. We don't often use paper for large braille documents anymore, and it just isn't true that contracted braille is faster to read than uncontracted braille. What is faster is
> what you know, so of course most blind Americans today read contracted braille faster. But I bet that blind Spaniards and Italians on average read faster than Americans, because they read uncontracted braille and even people struggling with braille can read it faster than they could if it was contracted.
> But what about math? Seems to me that ASCII math works for sighted people and should work just as well for blind people. For the near vanishingly small number of us who insist on math that gets beyond what ASCII math can do, we'll need something more complete. That is an important question of course, but it has nothing to do with the present discussion. Which wouldn't ever have arisen in the scenario I just painted.
> Okay, tomorrow morning I will regret writing this stupid letter, but right now I just got a weight off my shoulders for a while.
> John Gardner
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jonathan Godfrey via BlindMath
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2026 1:41 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Jonathan Godfrey <A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Braille Input with NVDA
>
> Thanks for the expansion on the student's circumstances Matthew,
>
> I don't profess to  understand the grading scheme, but recognise that some minimum level of mathematical competence is commonly expressed in each locale using a locally understood yardstick.
>
> I'm fascinated by the idea that the student is somewhat forced to learn UEB maths because that's what the hardcopy will be. I assume this is not a decision that is for the student to make, whether that be because his local support has made decisions or the centralised production house is doing hardcopy Braille the same way for all blind students. My fascination comes not because I believe the student should choose a different format, but that it is likely the student is not put in a position to assess their best pathway to success and therefore could make them less effective or efficient in a time-constrained exam setting because they are not given options.
>
> My second interest arising from your message is the awareness that some mathematical competence is needed in order to improve employment prospects. It is a battle I've faced and lost too many times. Insufficient mathematical competence in the support structures can lead to diminished effort and an early exit to all things mathematical for young people who do not yet understand how critical the skills taught in mathematics classes are. I'm not talking about the ability to differentiate, integrate and things that are only mathematical, but the skills of applying rules, logic, and reasoning that mathematically competent people do differently to people who lack those skills. Then there is also the notion that more employment opportunities exist for blind people who can handle numeric data, spreadsheets, etc.
>
> The practice of breaking problems down into manageable constituent parts is seldom seen in other high school subjects. It is a skill that I believe more young blind people who struggle to retain details in encyclopaedic fashion (the mere mortals) would benefit from, regardless of the profession they hope to enter later in life.
>
> I hope your encouragement and support improves the outlook this young person has on anything mathematical and high school in general.
>
> All the best,
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Matthew Horspool via BlindMath
> Sent: Thursday, 30 April 2026 2:02 am
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Matthew Horspool <mhorspool at live.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Braille Input with NVDA
>
> hi all,
>
> thanks for the robust debate. I was hoping (perhaps naively) not to go down that track, as I at ve heard a lot of the arguments before and can sympathise with all viewpoints. It will certainly be interesting to see where we end up. It doesn't help our high school student though!
>
> His current trojectory is this:
>
>    1.  Learn maths in high school because he has to. He will enjoy it as much as anyone enjoys school, but would much rather be studying something else.
>    2.  Take maths GCSE, He absolutely must get a grade 5 or above otherwise his job prospects will be jeopardised. His exam papers will be given to him in hard copy UEB grade 2 with UEB maths, so he has no choice but to learn UEB maths, and to this end he would quite like to write out his answers in UEB maths too.
>    3.  Leave high school and never touch maths again.
>
> His BrailleNote Touch Plus can accept UEB maths input and translate it into Word equations. This is the solution he is currently using, but the BrailleNote Touch Plus is deficient in most other areas, so we want to move him onto a computer-based system.
>
> JAWS has feature parity with the BrailleNote Touch Plus in terms of UEB maths translation. I don't know how it does it, but somehow it does.
>
> To my knowledge, NVDA does not have the same feature parity. My question was simply whether or not such feature parity could be achieved, either through a core feature unknown to me or an add-on. The fact that this has turned into a debate about the usefulness of braille, rather than a series of answers to the original question I asked, suggests to me that the answer is no, since if the answer was yes, we would not have needed to go down this tangent.
>
> So, thank you for indirectly answering my question, enjoy the rest of the debate, and I will tell them to buy JAWS when they get a new budget.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Matthew
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Michael Whapples via BlindMath
> Sent: 29 April 2026 08:40
> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Braille Input with NVDA
>
>
>
> I am on the same page regarding the text based formats. Specifically to Peter's conclusions. I get what you say regarding the backslashes, braces, etc in LaTeX, I guess that is where I feel ASCIIMath has its advantage. However I do appreciate ASCIIMath is a subset and has its limitations and sometimes LaTeX is needed for advanced cases. Also with 8-dot Braille and the 1-to-1 mapping I do find myself doing a lot more spatial layout in code.
>
>
>
>
>
> For personal working where the writing is not to be read by anyone else, then there is no need to follow a strict official code, you can always have your own shorthand or other modifications. This applies both electronically or on paper.
>
>
>
>
>
> Finally the big thing with this is the freedom it gives. You aren't locked to a specific screen reader, in fact it works about everywhere, from Linux text consoles, to Windows or Macs and even on mobile devices should you feel the need. Also its been working and accessible for ages, LaTeX more than 20 years, ASCIIMath from what I can tell first got discussed in 2007. This is what I meant in my independence comment, you aren't reliant on others or specific tools being available to communicate. Even without the ASCIIMath JavaScript to create the presentation MathML, its probably readable enough in code form by most people who understand the maths.
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael Whapples
>
>
>
> On 29/04/2026 02:56, Peter Rayner via BlindMath wrote:
>
>> I completely endorse the pragmatism of JG's approach but my use case
>> plus my limited capabilities have me arriving at a different answer.
>>> I also think context matters. I have not created any MS Word or Power Point files in the last decade.
>> Likewise, I only generate upstream text-based content, org-mode by
>> preference and LaTeX when required.
>>> I do watch what others are doing, just in case things change and somehow things improve enough to make me revisit my self-imposed choices. I doubt anyone would say that the state of Braille codes for maths are at an totally acceptable standard today. The problem of what gets put in vs what gets put out is just one area of shortcomings that if I'm honest, would seriously compromise my ability to be employed in my current job.
>> Again I agree. I do not expect  semantically accurate and presentable
>> automated translation of braille mathematics into visual form will be
>> reliable.
>>> So, to the die hard Braille code for maths people, what is it that you think will ensure the ongoing relevance of codes which are only used by blind people?
>> For me it's the need to do mathematics rather than present it. I don't
>> find brailled LaTeX compact enough to reveal the symbolic
>> relationships necessary to transform one algebraic expression into
>> another. I will still use spatial layout to support this when the
>> going gets especially tough. I accept this as an indictment of my
>> cognitive capacity but it is what it is. Braille maths and braille
>> labels have been the only uses for my Perkins for the last 25 years.
>> regards
>> Peter
>
>
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