Although most modern refreshable Braille displays offer 8 dots per Braille cell, the VersaBraille only had the standard six dots per cell. The extra bottom dots (7 and 8) are often used in computer Braille rendering to indicate capitalisation and special symbols.

Not everybody finds the extra dots useful. For some Braille readers, they are actively inconvenient by impairing the clarity of the character. In many contexts, being aware of capitalisation is not important, such as when reading a story for leisure or conducting a 'phone conversation.

If you are using WTC with a screen reader, the number of dots per cell will depend upon your screen reader settings. You should be able to set six dots only output if preferred, usually it is 8 dos by default. With a screen reader providing the Braille output, this setting is not determined by WTC at all, though a future release of the software will enable you to force six dots only by setting the Braille display to show everything in lowercase.

If you are using the built-in Braille display driver option, installing VersaBraille emulation automatically sets 6 dot Braille output. If you wish to retain the WTC general default of 8 dot Braille, you need to edit the Braille driver settings in the Braille support registry setup file, or set up the display driver via the command line. The relevant Braille driver options are described in the Braille support file section of this chapter.

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Number of Braille dots