Pharmaceutical products are most often distributed in more than one country. The Braille characters for the letters A-Z and the numbers 0-9 (with the exception of France) are almost entirely common throughout Europe. However, each country’s Braille authority has often differing specifications for accented characters, symbols and punctuation. To be more cost effective and to reduce the possibility of making errors in Braille for pharmaceutical packaging the packaging industry would benefit from being able to use just one Braille code and set of standards across the European Union.
Therefore, the European Blind Union carried out a review of the Braille codes across the EU and then developed proposals to achieve a single Braille character set for pharmaceutical labelling. An outcome of the standardization work is the establishment of a braille symbol database, published on The EBU Pharma - Braille Site hosted by RNIB. This subscription based website contains information on the EBU recommended braille character set and lists the countries who have agreed to use it. In addition the site contains information on many country specific European Braille codes and advice on how to achieve correctly formatted Pharmaceutical Braille. The site aims to have the most up-to-date information as possible on European Pharmaceutical Braille.
However, not all European countries have accepted the EBU proposed Braille code. So please confirm with the particular local Braille authority or check out the braille symbol database, published on The EBU Pharma - Braille Site, before implementing EBU Braille on your artwork.
To discover more about EBU braille please download and read The EBU Guidelines on Braille Labelling of Medicinal Products.
The PharmaBraille EU Braille font set contains the European Braille characters and is available for purchase on our shop page.
About the European Blind Union
The European Blind Union is a non-governmental, non profit making European organisation founded in 1984. It is one of the six regional bodies of the World Blind Union, and it promotes the interests of blind people and people with low vision in Europe.
It currently operates within a network of 45 national members including organisations from all 27 European Union member states, candidate nations and other major countries in geographical Europe.