Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections

Braille Ready Format (BRF) is a simple text file representing finished braille pages. BRF (pronounced brif with a short i sound, rhyming with cliff) does not have an official standard but the 2021 document BRF Files by Matthew Horspool for the Braillists Foundation contains technical details about the structure and use of BRF files. Horspool explains that BRF files are sometimes referred to as formatted braille in that it is "a text-based format which allows us to store and retrieve combinations of braille dots, in the same way as a plain text file allows us to store and retrieve combinations of print letters and numbers."

Structure of BRF

BRF files save the textual data in ASCII form by replacing the braille symbols with ASCII characters thereby converting the data into a computer-readable format that can eventually be shown on a braille notetaker or embosser. The Braille Plus glossary entry for BRF states that BRF files generally contain 25 lines per page, with each line holding up to 39 characters. Mathematical expressions and symbols, as well as graphics, can be converted into words before being translated into BRF. Most BRF files written in the English language use the 6-dot braille patterns defined in Computer Braille Code to represent all ASCII characters. (Note that since January 2016, Computer Braille Code is no longer official in the US, according to the American Foundation for the Blind, and is replaced by UEB Braille or Unified English Braille as the main code for reading material in English-speaking countries. Horspool adds that "BRF files which originate in countries in which English is not the native language may not use the US computer braille code for their assignments. Whilst it is rare to find a BRF file that was encoded using the UK computer braille code, it is common to find BRF files encoded using, say, the French computer braille code if the file originated in France.") Braille files use ASCII characters and there are 63 unique combinations of dots in braille, plus a 64th combination of no dots at all (a space). Each of these combinations is assigned an ASCII character on the computer keyboard.

According to Wikipedia, "BRF is a file that can represent contracted or uncontracted (i.e. grade 1 or grade 2) Unified English Braille, English Braille and non-English languages. BRF files contain plain Braille ASCII plus spaces, Carriage Return, Line Feed, and Form Feed ASCII control characters. The spaces, Carriage Returns, Line Feeds, and Form feeds are sufficient to specify how the braille is formatted. Previously BRF contained some additional specialized formatting instructions, but now BRF is formatted exactly like Web-Braille/BARD."

Horspool notes that, "since layout is strict in BRF files, anomalies occur when embossing them on pages which don't conform exactly to the layout of the BRF file, or when reading them on devices with a different line length to the BRF file. This is particularly true where the line or page length of the file is longer than the line or page length of the page or device."

While BRF files can be opened in a simple text editor, the content is coded for braille interpretation. The ASCII characters are recognizable but also include formatting instructions. Horspool provides this example: Hello, my name is Matthew. is represented in BRF as ,hello1 my "n is ,mat!w4 .

Uses of BRF Files

BRF files have two primary uses: embossing hard copy versions of braille documents; and reading and writing braille on electronic devices such as notetakers and braille displays. See Adoption for more information.