The RNIB have released the source to their Braille conversion program Braille-It under the GPL. This is a tool, written in C, which will take text and convert it into contracted Braille. [For those that don't appreciate this: grade 1 British Braille spells out words letter for letter, grade 2 is contracted, with common words/endings /abbreviations expressed in common short forms]. There is also the source for a Braille formatter from a Swedish programmer available.
I don't know Braille - I'm helping someone who is deaf/blind - but this seems like something of fairly wide use. I'm aware there are differences between national Braille systems. UK Braille is used elsewhere in the Commonwealth and former British bits of the world AFAIK. Can any Braillists advise on what would be appropriate - I'm thinking of a common core program with different rule sets as plugins for Swedish/American/ British/Martian braille, for example. I'm not sure how easy this would be to package or what the best way forward for this is. All advice appreciated. Andy
