A refreshable braille display or note-taker shows braille one line at a time. A BRF file made for it reads best when its lines match the display.

Get a BRF file onto your display

Check how many cells your display has. A common size is 40, and the manual will say.
Ask ELLA for BRF with a line width close to it. ELLA offers 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42 cells per line. For a 40-cell display, write "BRF, 40 cells per line".
Choose the braille grade you read. See grade 1 and grade 2.
Download the BRF file from the request.
Move it to the device. How you do that depends on the device: a USB cable, a memory card, Bluetooth or the maker's app. The manual describes it.
Open the file in the device's book reader or file manager.

Why the width matters

A BRF file holds line breaks. If the file has 32 cells on a line and your display shows 40, each line fills only part of the display. If the file has 42 cells and your display shows 40, the end of each line may wrap onto the next, and the layout looks broken. Some devices re-flow text and ignore the file's breaks. Others do not. Choosing a matching width avoids the problem.

Pages

A BRF file also holds page breaks, because it is made for embossing. Your device may show them as a blank line or a page marker.

If it will not open

Check that the file ends in .brf.
Try another reader on the device.
If your device asks for a different format, tell ELLA which one. ELLA writes BRF, PEF and eBraille. See BRF and PEF.

If the braille looks wrong

Garbled characters usually mean the device is reading the file in a different table or encoding than the file was written in. Check the device's setting for the braille table. If the problem persists, see braille looks wrong.

Still stuck?

Browse the help centre, or contact support and say what you were trying to do.

Read a BRF file on a braille display