Binary Translator

How text becomes binary

Computers store text as numbers. This translator uses UTF-8, the encoding used by most web pages: each character becomes one to four bytes, and each byte is written as eight binary digits. Plain English letters take one byte each (A is 01000001, a is 01100001), an accented letter such as é takes two (11000011 10101001), and most emoji take four. For basic Latin letters, digits and punctuation the bytes are the same as in ASCII.

Reading binary back

Paste bytes separated by spaces, one byte per group. A group with fewer than eight digits is padded with zeros on the left, so 1000001 reads as 01000001. Without spaces, the digits are read in groups of eight and the total length must be a multiple of eight. If the bytes do not form valid UTF-8, the readable parts are shown and the rest appears as �, with a note under the result.

Hex and decimal

Under the binary result you also see the same bytes in hexadecimal and in decimal, which is handy for programming, debugging or homework that asks for byte values.

Frequently asked questions

What is “hello” in binary?

01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111: one byte for each letter h, e, l, l, o.

Why does each letter have eight digits?

Each digit is one bit and eight bits make a byte, the unit computers use to store characters. Basic Latin letters fit in one byte; other characters use two to four bytes in UTF-8.

Why does an emoji turn into 32 digits?

Most emoji need four bytes in UTF-8, and four bytes are 32 bits. Some emoji are built from several characters, so they produce even more bytes.

Does this convert numbers to binary?

No, it converts characters. The digit 5 is stored as the character code 00110101, not as the number five in base 2 (101). For number bases, use a base converter.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. The conversion runs in your browser with the built-in UTF-8 encoder. Your text is not sent to a server or stored.