Braille pattern dots-3467

Three dots are on the left, one on the right.

An eight-dot cell has two columns of four positions. From top to bottom, the left column is numbered 1, 2, 3, 7; the right is 4, 5, 6, 8. In ⡬, the bottom two positions on the left and the top and third positions on the right are marked.

The name 3467 lists positions, not a number to read aloud. Dot 7 is the extra bottom-left position beneath the traditional six-dot cell. Unicode identifies the pattern; a particular braille code assigns its reading.

Braille is writing you can read by touch

Braille represents writing through arrangements of raised dots that blind readers can feel with their fingertips. A character displayed on an ordinary screen is a visual representation of those dots; it does not make the screen tactile.

Louis Braille encountered Charles Barbier’s raised-dot system at school in 1821, then developed his own compact reading and writing system, published in 1829. His six-dot cell underlies traditional braille; eight-dot braille extends it with two positions at the bottom.