Display Braille characters on iPad

Question

I am developing an app for iPad. For testing purposes I need my app to display Braille characters on the iPad screen. Using objective-c I set the font name to "Apple Braille" with:

outletText.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Apple Braille" size:fontSize];

But it doesn't work. I get on my iPad only default alphabetical characters, as if "Apple Braille" font name it not recognised.

Any help? Thank you.

Answer 1

Apple Braille is not one of the built-in system fonts on iOS. Please see this question for how to use Custom Fonts in an iOS app.

Answer 2

I never used @"Apple Braille" font and I have doubts it is preinstalled. Based on this article, list of available fonts on iPhone looks like this:

Family name: Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W3
    Font name: HiraKakuProN-W3
Family name: Courier
    Font name: Courier
    Font name: Courier-BoldOblique
    Font name: Courier-Oblique
    Font name: Courier-Bold
Family name: Arial
    Font name: ArialMT
    Font name: Arial-BoldMT
    Font name: Arial-BoldItalicMT
    Font name: Arial-ItalicMT
Family name: STHeiti TC
    Font name: STHeitiTC-Light
    Font name: STHeitiTC-Medium
Family name: AppleGothic
    Font name: AppleGothic
Family name: Courier New
    Font name: CourierNewPS-BoldMT
    Font name: CourierNewPS-ItalicMT
    Font name: CourierNewPS-BoldItalicMT
    Font name: CourierNewPSMT
Family name: Zapfino
    Font name: Zapfino
Family name: Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6
    Font name: HiraKakuProN-W6
Family name: Arial Unicode MS
    Font name: ArialUnicodeMS
Family name: STHeiti SC
    Font name: STHeitiSC-Medium
    Font name: STHeitiSC-Light
Family name: American Typewriter
    Font name: AmericanTypewriter
    Font name: AmericanTypewriter-Bold
Family name: Helvetica
    Font name: Helvetica-Oblique
    Font name: Helvetica-BoldOblique
    Font name: Helvetica
    Font name: Helvetica-Bold
Family name: Marker Felt
    Font name: MarkerFelt-Thin
Family name: Helvetica Neue
    Font name: HelveticaNeue
    Font name: HelveticaNeue-Bold
Family name: DB LCD Temp
    Font name: DBLCDTempBlack
Family name: Verdana
    Font name: Verdana-Bold
    Font name: Verdana-BoldItalic
    Font name: Verdana
    Font name: Verdana-Italic
Family name: Times New Roman
    Font name: TimesNewRomanPSMT
    Font name: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT
    Font name: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT
    Font name: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT
Family name: Georgia
    Font name: Georgia-Bold
    Font name: Georgia
    Font name: Georgia-BoldItalic
    Font name: Georgia-Italic
Family name: STHeiti J
    Font name: STHeitiJ-Medium
    Font name: STHeitiJ-Light
Family name: Arial Rounded MT Bold
    Font name: ArialRoundedMTBold
Family name: Trebuchet MS
    Font name: TrebuchetMS-Italic
    Font name: TrebuchetMS
    Font name: Trebuchet-BoldItalic
    Font name: TrebuchetMS-Bold
Family name: STHeiti K
    Font name: STHeitiK-Medium
    Font name: STHeitiK-Light

Also question is how did you provided characters? Did you used regular Latin characters "a-z" with this font? Maybe you should tried use Unicode characters specific for Braille, this should work with standard font.

Answer 3

Solved using:

    brailleSymbol = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithBytes:&brailleUnicode length:sizeof(brailleUnicode) encoding:NSUTF32LittleEndianStringEncoding];