Braille embosser

A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document can be embossed with relative ease, making braille production efficient and cost-effective.

Blind users tend to call other printers "ink printers," to distinguish them from their braille counterparts. This is often the case regardless of the type of printer being discussed (e.g., thermal printers being called "ink printers" even though they use no ink).

As with ink printers and presses, embossers range from those intended for consumers to those used by large publishers. Thus, an embosser can cost roughly anywhere from US$2,000 to $150,000.

The fastest industrial braille embosser is probably the $77,000 Belgian-made NV Interpoint 55, first produced in 1991, which uses a separate air compressor to drive the embossing head and can output up to 800 braille characters per second. Adoption was slow at first; in 2000 the National Federation of the Blind said there were only three of these in the USA, one owned by the NFB itself and the other two by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. As of 2008 there are more than 60 in use across the world.