Binary translator
Type text to get binary, or paste 0s and 1s to read them. It switches direction by itself.
Runs in your browser. Your text is not sent or saved.
- Hex
- Decimal
How text becomes binary
Computers store every character as a number, and every number as bits, 0s and 1s. The letter H is number 72, and 72 in binary is 01001000: reading from the right, the 1s stand for 8 and 64, and 8 + 64 = 72. Each group of eight bits is one byte, so "Hi" becomes two bytes, 01001000 01101001. The translator uses UTF-8, the encoding used by nearly every web page (W3Techs survey), so English letters, digits and common symbols take one byte each, while accented letters take two, most other scripts three and emoji four.
| Text | Binary | Hex | Decimal |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 01000001 | 41 | 65 |
| a | 01100001 | 61 | 97 |
| Hi | 01001000 01101001 | 48 69 | 72 105 |
| ? | 00111111 | 3F | 63 |
| é | 11000011 10101001 | C3 A9 | 195 169 |
| 😀 | 11110000 10011111 10011000 10000000 | F0 9F 98 80 | 240 159 152 128 |
Capital and small letters differ by one bit: A is 01000001 and a is 01100001, the third bit from the left, worth 32. That is why A is 65 and a is 97.
Reading binary back
Paste the bits with spaces between bytes, or as one long run; a run is split into groups of eight. Groups of seven, as some puzzles write them, are read with a 0 in front. If the number of bits isn't a multiple of eight, or the bytes don't form valid UTF-8 text, the translator says so instead of guessing, since the bits may stand for a number or other data rather than letters.
Letters A to Z in binary
| Letter | Capital | Small |
|---|---|---|
| A / a | 01000001 | 01100001 |
| B / b | 01000010 | 01100010 |
| C / c | 01000011 | 01100011 |
| D / d | 01000100 | 01100100 |
| E / e | 01000101 | 01100101 |
| F / f | 01000110 | 01100110 |
| G / g | 01000111 | 01100111 |
| H / h | 01001000 | 01101000 |
| I / i | 01001001 | 01101001 |
| J / j | 01001010 | 01101010 |
| K / k | 01001011 | 01101011 |
| L / l | 01001100 | 01101100 |
| M / m | 01001101 | 01101101 |
| N / n | 01001110 | 01101110 |
| O / o | 01001111 | 01101111 |
| P / p | 01010000 | 01110000 |
| Q / q | 01010001 | 01110001 |
| R / r | 01010010 | 01110010 |
| S / s | 01010011 | 01110011 |
| T / t | 01010100 | 01110100 |
| U / u | 01010101 | 01110101 |
| V / v | 01010110 | 01110110 |
| W / w | 01010111 | 01110111 |
| X / x | 01011000 | 01111000 |
| Y / y | 01011001 | 01111001 |
| Z / z | 01011010 | 01111010 |
Questions
How do I convert binary to text?
Paste the binary into the box, with spaces between bytes or as one long run, and the text appears underneath. 01001000 01101001 reads as "Hi".
How do I convert text to binary?
Type or paste the text. Each letter becomes a group of eight 0s and 1s, so "Hi" is 01001000 01101001. Copy result copies it.
Can it turn binary into numbers?
Yes. The Decimal line shows the value of each byte, so 01001000 01101001 is 72 105, and Hex shows the same bytes in hexadecimal.
Is binary code the same as ASCII?
For English letters, digits and basic punctuation, yes: UTF-8 uses the same numbers as ASCII for those 128 characters, so the binary is identical. UTF-8 then adds longer codes for everything else, which plain ASCII can't show.
How do I turn a number like 42 into binary?
Typing 42 here gives the binary for the characters "4" and "2" (00110100 00110010), not for the number. The number 42 in binary is 101010: 32 + 8 + 2. To convert numbers, divide by 2 repeatedly and read the remainders from the bottom up.
Can I write a secret message with it?
You can, but it isn't secret: anyone can turn binary back into text in seconds, just as this page does. For anything private, use real encryption.