Free Text to Binary Translator
Convert text to binary code and binary back to text instantly. Supports 7-bit, 8-bit and 16-bit encoding with a full ASCII reference chart — no sign-up required.
Your Input
Result
01000001 in 8-bit binary. Turn off "Space between bytes" for a continuous bit stream.Binary Reference Chart
Click any cell to copy its binary sequence. All values shown in 8-bit format.
What Is Text to Binary?
Text to binary converts written characters into their binary representation — a sequence of 0s and 1s that a computer can process. Computers don't store letters and punctuation directly; they store numbers. Every character you type has a numeric code assigned to it, and that number is what actually gets written to memory or transmitted over a network.
The conversion happens in two steps:
- Character → number. Each character has a code. In ASCII,
Ais 65,Bis 66,ais 97,0is 48, and a space is 32. - Number → binary. The code is rewritten in base 2. Since 65 = 64 + 1, and 64 = 2⁶ and 1 = 2⁰, the binary form is
01000001.
The three bit widths
| Width | Standard | Range | What It Covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7-bit | Classic ASCII | 0–127 | English letters, digits, basic punctuation, control codes |
| 8-bit | Extended ASCII / Latin-1 | 0–255 | The 7-bit set plus accented letters (é, ñ, ü) and symbols (±, ÷) |
| 16-bit | UTF-16 | 0–65,535+ | Emoji, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean — every writing system |
Reading binary by hand
In 8-bit binary, each of the eight positions is a power of 2, from 128 down to 1:
| Position | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | 128 | 64 | 32 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
To read 01001000, add up the positions that have a 1: 64 + 8 = 72. And 72 is the ASCII code for H.
Worked example: "Hi"
The letter H = 72 = 01001000, and the letter i = 105 = 01101001.
Why does lowercase have a higher code than uppercase?
In ASCII, uppercase A–Z occupy codes 65–90, and lowercase a–z occupy 97–122. This was a deliberate design choice: the difference between an uppercase and its lowercase counterpart is always exactly 32 (a single bit). So to convert between cases, you only need to flip one bit — bit position 5. This made case conversion extremely fast in early computers.
7-bit vs 8-bit vs 16-bit: which should I use?
- Use 7-bit if you're studying classic ASCII or working with very old systems.
- Use 8-bit (the default) for everyday use — it covers everything you can type on an English keyboard plus common accented letters.
- Use 16-bit for anything outside the Latin alphabet — emoji, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean.
If you try to encode emoji in 8-bit mode, they'll be replaced with ?. That's not a bug — 8 bits simply can't represent them.
Common use cases
Learning Computer Science
See how characters map to numbers and bits — fundamental to every programming course.
Programming & Debugging
Inspect how a string is encoded before sending it over a wire or saving to a file.
Puzzles & Games
Create binary-encoded messages for escape rooms, treasure hunts and riddles.
Simple Obfuscation
Hide text as binary — readable to a machine, but not immediately obvious to a human.
Embedded Systems
Understand what a microcontroller actually sees when it receives a string.
Networking
Read packet dumps and understand how data travels at the bit level.
Teaching Kids
Show children how computers "think" by converting their name to binary.
Data Encoding
Prepare data for protocols or systems that expect plain binary input.
Binary vs Morse vs hexadecimal
These three encodings come up together, but they're different tools for different jobs:
- Binary — base 2, symbols 0 and 1. Fixed-length encoding. What machines actually process.
- Morse — dots and dashes. Variable-length, with timing as part of the encoding. Designed for human transmission over sound or light.
- Hexadecimal — base 16, symbols 0–9 and A–F. A compact way for humans to write binary. Four binary digits = one hex digit, so
01001000becomes48.
Hex exists mostly so programmers don't have to look at long runs of 0s and 1s. The underlying data is identical.
Privacy and security
This text to binary translator runs entirely in your browser. Your text is never sent to a server, never stored, and disappears the moment you close the tab. Safe for private messages, code snippets and classroom exercises.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is text to binary?
01000001 in 8-bit binary.How does 8-bit binary work?
01000001. 8 bits gives 256 possible values (0–255), enough for basic ASCII.What is the difference between 7-bit, 8-bit and 16-bit binary?
Can I convert binary back to text?
Does binary support emoji and non-Latin scripts?
? placeholder.Why is there a space between every 8 bits?
0100100001100101 is hard to parse — with spaces it becomes 01001000 01100101, which you can immediately see is two characters. You can turn spaces off in the options if you need a continuous bit stream for a program.What does the "0b prefix" option do?
0b prefix is a common programming convention that marks a number as binary. It's used in JavaScript, Python, C++ and many other languages. Turning this option on produces output like 0b01001000 0b01100101, which you can paste directly into code that expects binary literals.