Most pharmaceutical products are distributed in more than one country. At the moment the Braille characters for the letters A-Z and the numbers 0-9 (with the exception of France) are the same 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 across the European Union. With that ultimate goal in mind the European Blind Union has issued a proposal for a standard E.U. Pharmaceutical Braille Table.

The IADD working in conjunction with the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) officially released the Can-Am Braille standard on Friday, May 8, at the 2009 IADD•FSEA Odyssey in Atlanta, GA, USA. An informative technical workshop, “Let Your Fingers Do The Talking: Braille on Folding Cartons” reviewed the “North American standard in detail.

The AccuBraille production module from the BOBST Group enables Braille to be embossed at the optimum stage of the production process—the folding-glueing stage—thus lowering costs. This BOBST Group innovation, integrated in a carton folding and glueing machine, embosses Braille dots with significantly improved dot height over it’s rival embossing solutions.

Compared to the Braille embossing of cartons at the cutting and creasing stage (as most competing embossing methods do) AccuBraille brings advantages that enable converters to cope in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner, while meeting European and North American standards for Braille on pharmaceutical packages.