Text to binary
Type words, watch them become the bytes a computer actually stores, and see the same bytes in hex and decimal while you are at it.
Guide
How to use it
- Type your text, the binary appears live, one 8-bit group per byte.
- Read the hex and decimal rows to see the same bytes in friendlier notations.
- Copy whichever row the puzzle, homework or T-shirt design calls for.
- Note the byte counter: accents and emoji spend more bytes than ASCII letters, that is UTF-8 working as designed.
Examples
One letter, worked through
A is code point 65. In binary, 65 is 64 + 1: bit 7 off, bit 6 on, bits 5 to 1 off, bit 0 on, hence 01000001. Lowercase a is 97, exactly 32 more, one bit’s difference, which is why case conversion is a single bit flip.
The space is a character too, byte 32. Forgetting it is the classic decode-by-hand error, "HI THERE" is nine characters, not eight.
é becomes 11000011 10101001: UTF-8 marks multi-byte characters with prefix bits (110 means "first of two"). The scheme is why old ASCII files are automatically valid UTF-8.
Method
How it works
Characters map to Unicode code points, and UTF-8 packs each code point into one to four bytes: ASCII in one, with high-bit prefixes chaining longer sequences. The binary row shows those actual bytes, not just code point numbers, which is what "text to binary" honestly means on a modern system.
Hex is the same bytes at base 16 (two digits per byte), decimal at base 10, three notations, one reality.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is this ASCII or UTF-8?
UTF-8, which contains ASCII exactly: for plain English letters the output is identical to an ASCII table. The difference only appears with accents, symbols and emoji.
Why does uppercase differ from lowercase by one bit?
ASCII’s designers placed the alphabets 32 apart deliberately, bit 5 is effectively the lowercase switch. Elegant 1963 engineering you can verify in the output.
How do I do the conversion by hand?
Find the code point (A is 65), then subtract descending powers of two: 65 = 64 + 1, giving 01000001. Reverse it by adding the powers where you see 1s.
Why do some characters make four groups?
Code points above U+FFFF (most emoji) need four UTF-8 bytes, the prefix scheme (11110 then three 10-continuations) is visible right in the output.
Binary, bits or bytes, which am I looking at?
Each 0 or 1 is a bit, each group of eight is a byte. "Hi" is 2 bytes, 16 bits.
Is the conversion done on a server?
No, your browser’s own text encoder does it, locally and instantly.
More tools