How to use the binary code translator
- Binary to text: paste 0s and 1s into the Binary box. Bytes can be separated by spaces, commas or new lines, or run together with no spaces at all.
- Text to binary: type in the Text box. Choose whether the bytes are separated by spaces, written together, or put one per line.
- Check the table under the boxes to see each character, its number and its bytes. It is a good way to learn how a binary text translator actually works.
- Use Copy to grab either side.
Binary, bits and bytes in plain words
Everyday numbers use ten digits (0–9), so each position is worth ten times the one to its right. Binary uses only two digits, so each position is worth twice the next: from right to left the places are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128. To read a byte, add the place values wherever there is a 1:
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
64 + 1 = 65 → "A"One binary digit is a bit. Eight bits are a byte, and a byte can hold 256 different values (0 to 255). That is enough for every English letter, digit and punctuation mark, which is why free binary translators usually show text as groups of eight digits.
From ASCII to UTF-8: how text becomes binary
A computer cannot store the letter “A” directly; it stores a number that everyone agrees means “A”. The first widely used agreement was ASCII, which numbers 128 characters (0–127): English letters, digits, punctuation and a few control codes. Some common values:
| Character | Decimal | Binary |
|---|---|---|
| A | 65 | 01000001 |
| B | 66 | 01000010 |
| Z | 90 | 01011010 |
| a | 97 | 01100001 |
| z | 122 | 01111010 |
| 0 | 48 | 00110000 |
| 9 | 57 | 00111001 |
| space | 32 | 00100000 |
| ! | 33 | 00100001 |
Capital and small letters differ by exactly 32, a single bit: 01000001 is “A” and 01100001 is “a”.
ASCII has no room for “é”, “ß”, “한” or “😀”. Today almost all text uses UTF-8 (RFC 3629), which keeps the 128 ASCII characters as single bytes, so English binary looks the same either way, and writes every other Unicode character as two, three or four bytes. This translator uses UTF-8, so “é” becomes 11000011 10101001 and an emoji becomes four bytes.
Binary to text encoding: tips and problems
- Bits missing: if a long run without spaces is not a multiple of 8, a digit was lost or added while copying. The translator tells you how many bits it found.
- 7-bit groups: some puzzles write ASCII with seven digits per letter (
1000001). When the groups are separated by spaces, the translator pads them to eight for you. - Strange symbols (�): the bytes are not valid UTF-8 text. Usually a byte is wrong, or the binary is not text at all (an image or a number, for example).
- Binary to word converter vs. number converter: this tool reads bytes as characters. To turn binary into a single number (say
1010to 10), you need a base converter instead.
Binary is one of several ways to write bytes as text. For data you need to send in emails or URLs, see the Base64 decoder and the URL decoder.