Braille users will be able to turn the page on smoother access to their favourite texts thanks to the unveiling of two new braille printers which the public have helped Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to name.

The sight loss charity turned to supporters in its quest to come up with names for the new braille printers and embossers and following many inspired suggestions, the winning names were ‘Bill Brailey’ and ‘Dottie’.

The acquisition has been made possible thanks to the help of players of People’s Postcode Lottery which supports the charity through funds awarded by Postcode Care Trust. 

The new printers were recently installed at the charity’s state-of-the-art Gateshead site where staff are excited that they will streamline the process of producing texts in the braille format for blind people, allowing RNIB to grow its braille collection by an extra 20 titles a month.

RNIB ran a competition through its social media channels for supporters to suggest names to give the new devices. A shortlist was compiled which staff then voted for their favourite, with ‘Bill Brailey’ coming out top of the list followed by ‘Dottie’.

RNIB’s Chief Operating Officer Mari Jones, said: “We are grateful to everyone who took time to suggest names and vote for their favourite and we couldn’t be happier with the choices and welcome ‘Bill Brailey’ and ‘Dottie’ to our Gateshead site.” 

“Our new braille printers can produce 650 braille characters a second and 1,950 pages an hour. The machines offer a complete braille production process, you can send a file and pick up a book in next to no time, so our braille customers can get the text in the format they need faster.”

Players of People’s Postcode Lottery have raised more than £8.3m to support RNIB’s work in the past 6 years. 

2024 is a special year for braille as it marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, who invented the braille system which uses combinations of raised dots to represent letters and numbers.