How it works
This text to binary translator writes each character you type as UTF-8 bytes, eight ones and zeros apiece: an English to binary translator for words, names and sentences. The table below lists 163 characters, 95 of them ASCII.
Read the full guide
Translate text to binary code
To translate text to binary, type or paste and your words replace the sample. Each letter, digit and space becomes eight bits, with a space between bytes. This text to binary converter is online, free and runs in your browser. To read binary back, the binary translator opens that way round.
How to translate to binary by hand
Find the character’s number: H is 72. Split it into the places 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1, so 72 is 64 plus 8. Write 1 for each place used and 0 for the rest: 01001000. For letters, 010 opens a capital, 011 a small letter, and the last five bits give the place in the alphabet.
- Case is one bit, worth 32: Latin capital letter A is 01000001 and Latin small letter a is 01100001.
- A 101 Morse code translator has nothing to translate: 101 is binary for 5, and the character 5 is 00110101.
- Past ASCII, 110 opens a two-byte character, 1110 three and 11110 four. Euro sign costs three bytes, Grinning face four.
Questions and answers
Does an English to binary translator know English?
No. It is an encoder: French or emoji go through alike. Every character has a number, and UTF-8 writes it as one to four bytes. ASCII, first published in 1963, fixed the first 128 and UTF-8 kept them, so A is 01000001 in both.
What is lol in binary?
It is 01101100 01101111 01101100: three small letters, one byte each, and the two l bytes match. Yes in binary code is 01111001 01100101 01110011. In capitals every byte would open 010, not 011.
How do I translate my name to binary?
Type it above. A capital first letter opens 010 and the small letters after it 011. The space between first name and surname is a byte too, 00100000, so Sam Lee comes to seven bytes.
Are 1s and 0s Morse code?
No. Morse is dots and dashes, and its letters differ in length (E is one dot); every byte is eight bits. Feed a Morse code translator 1 and 0, or 01 as one word, and it sends back numerals. Press Swap and paste them here.