This page lists questions about the Braille dictionaries we have, and we'll keep it updated as things change. If your question isn't answered here, ask us, and we will get back to you.
Probably. If you have a Braille display with an internal reader or editor, then one of the formats we have should work. We have recommendations for the best format for many devices. On each dictionary page, select the "help me choose a format" button and identify the display you have to get a suggestion. If we don't have your display in our recommendations, that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It's very likely that it does. We just don't know what format will work best. You can tell us about your display and we'll work with you to find the best format and add it to our reccommendations list, or you can try a format from the full list and see how well it works.
The formats we have available can run on any Braille display that can read Braille files. More complex formats could make navigation faster, but the problem with them is that we would need to run some software on the Braille display to make that happen. We have a structured format which would work quite well with that, but if we can't install that software, and for most displays we can't, then it does no good. We're hoping that we will eventually be able to provide better dictionary software for some displays, but the raw Braille files will always be an option because, no matter what, those should be usable on nearly every display.
Sometimes. There are a few things we need from any dictionary before we know we can include it. These include finding a source of all definitions, having the language support for it, and understanding its copyright and license information. For those reasons, there are times when we can't add a dictionary that we'd like to. If you have a dictionary you'd like to see, tell us about it and we will see if it can be added.
Probably eventually, but not right now. To add bilingual dictionaries, we need to find some good ones (let us know if you know of ones we should consider), we need to modify our production tools to handle them, and we may need to spend longer making sure we're certain of every language to avoid making Braille format errors. This is something we know would be useful, and it is definitely something that we want to do, but we may not get to it as quickly as we would like.
There are several ways you can help us make the best Braille dictionaries we can.