Text to ASCII binary

Computers store every character as a number, and every number as a pattern of bits. This converter shows that pattern: each character of your text becomes its 8-bit binary code, and binary input is decoded back into readable text. It is a popular tool for learning how encoding works, for computer science homework and for puzzles and hidden messages.

How to use it

1. Type text to see its binary representation, one byte per character separated by spaces.
2. Or paste binary, in groups of 8 bits, to decode it to text.

Example

Hi! becomes 01001000 01101001 00100001:

• H = 72 = 01001000
• i = 105 = 01101001
• ! = 33 = 00100001

How to convert by hand

Find the character's ASCII code, then write it in base 2 using place values 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. For H = 72: 72 = 64 + 8, so the bits for 64 and 8 are 1 and the rest are 0, giving 01001000. To decode, add up the place values of the 1 bits.

Things to know

• Standard ASCII only uses 7 bits (0 to 127); the leading bit of each byte is 0.
• Characters outside ASCII, such as é or emoji, take several bytes in UTF-8. é becomes 11000011 10101001.
• Uppercase and lowercase letters differ only in the third bit from the left: A is 01000001, a is 01100001.
• Binary is an encoding, not encryption; anyone can decode it.