Braille dots 2, 3, 5, 6, 7

It has three dots on the left and two on the right. Viewed from the reading side, an eight-dot cell has two columns of four positions. The left column is numbered 1, 2, 3, 7 from top to bottom; the right is 4, 5, 6, 8. In ⡶, positions 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 are raised; 1, 4 and 8 are empty.

Braille is writing read by touch, using combinations of raised dots. On an ordinary screen, this character is only a visible representation of that pattern; the screen does not become tactile.

Why use eight positions for five dots?

Eight counts the available positions, not the raised dots. Traditional six-dot Braille has two columns of three positions. Eight-dot Braille adds positions 7 and 8 beneath them, allowing 256 patterns, including the blank cell, instead of 64.

Computer Braille uses the extra positions to distinguish characters. Refreshable Braille displays—devices with pins that rise and fall—can also use them for cursor and formatting cues. Unicode records the dot pattern; the particular Braille code supplies its reading.