ELLAGlossary
Short meanings for words you may meet in ELLA and in this help centre.
Braille
Braille
A system of raised dots that people read with their fingers. Each pattern of dots, called a cell, stands for a letter, a number, a symbol or a contraction.
Braille cell
The space for one braille character. A cell has up to six dots in two columns of three.
UEB
Unified English Braille. The braille code used for English across the UK and several other countries. ELLA writes UEB. See braille.
Grade 1 or uncontracted braille
Braille that spells each word letter by letter. See grade 1 and grade 2.
Grade 2 or contracted braille
Braille that uses single signs for common words and groups of letters. It is shorter.
UEB technical
The part of UEB for maths and science notation. See braille maths.
Nemeth
A different braille code for maths, used mainly in the United States. ELLA does not write it.
BRF
Braille Ready File. A text file in which each character stands for a braille cell, used by braille displays and embossers. See BRF and PEF.
PEF
Portable Embosser Format. An open file format for embossing braille.
eBraille
A digital braille publication format, packaged as a set of files. See eBraille.
Braille display
A device that shows braille by raising and lowering pins. Also called a refreshable braille display.
Embosser
A printer that makes braille by pressing dots into paper.
Documents and access
Alt text
Alternative text. A written description of a picture that a screen reader reads aloud.
Screen reader
Software that reads what is on a screen aloud, or sends it to a braille display.
Tagged PDF
A PDF with hidden structure that says what is a heading, a list, a table or a picture. See untagged PDFs.
PDF/UA
A standard for accessible PDFs. ELLA makes PDFs in this format and checks them.
OCR
Optical character recognition. Software that reads text from a picture of a page. See scanned PDFs.
Large print
Print with bigger type and clearer spacing. See large print.
Easy read
Information written in short sentences and simple words so more people can understand it. See easy read.
EPUB
An e-book format in which the reader can change the text size and look. See EPUB.
HTML
The language of web pages. See HTML.
QTVI
Qualified Teacher of children and young people with Vision Impairment.
SENCO
Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, the person in a school who leads support for pupils with special educational needs.
ELLA
Request
One piece of work you ask ELLA to do, with the files it makes.
Chat reply
The conversation where you ask for files and follow up on the results. See checking your results.
Credit
The unit ELLA uses to measure how much work a request takes. See your monthly allowance.
Memory
A short instruction you save so ELLA applies it to later requests. See memories.
Accessibility profile
A saved set of reading preferences. See accessibility profile.
Passkey
A way to sign in without a password. See sign in with a passkey.
Still stuck?
Browse the help centre, or contact support and say what you were trying to do.