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Binary Text Translator

How do I turn text into binary, or binary back into text?

Type text to see its binary right away, or paste binary to read it as text. It is free to use, it runs in your browser, and no email is needed.

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How it works

  1. Pick a direction: text to binary, or binary to text. Then type or paste into the box. For text to binary you can also choose whether a space goes between each 8-bit byte. The result updates as you type.
  2. Text to binary: the tool turns your text into bytes using UTF-8, the encoding described in RFC 3629. Plain ASCII letters, digits and punctuation keep their ASCII values and take one byte each, with the top bit set to 0. For example, H is 72, which is 01001000.
  3. Letters with accents, other alphabets and emoji take 2 to 4 bytes in UTF-8. Each extra byte starts with the bits 10. So the letter é becomes two bytes, 11000011 10101001, and a smiley emoji becomes four. Each byte is written as exactly 8 digits of 0 and 1.
  4. Binary to text: the tool removes spaces, tabs and line breaks, then checks that only 0 and 1 are left and that the count of digits is a multiple of 8. Each group of 8 digits becomes one byte, and the bytes are read back as UTF-8 text. If they do not form valid UTF-8, it says so instead of guessing.
  5. The result shows the binary or the text, the number of bytes and the number of characters. Below it, a small table lists the first 20 characters with each one's code point and its bytes in binary, so you can see how each letter maps to bytes.

Sources, checked October 12, 2026

Questions

Is text to binary the same as ASCII to binary?

For plain English letters, digits and common punctuation, yes. UTF-8 keeps every ASCII character at its ASCII value in a single byte, so the bits match. The two only differ for characters outside ASCII, such as accents and emoji, which ASCII cannot hold.

Why does one letter sometimes become two or more bytes?

UTF-8 uses 1 to 4 bytes per character. ASCII characters use one byte. Accented letters like é use two, many other alphabets use two or three, and emoji use four. That is why the byte count can be larger than the character count.

Can it convert a number like 5 into binary?

No. This tool converts characters, not number values. Typing 5 gives the binary of the character 5, which is 00110101, not the number five written in base 2.

Why does my binary give an error?

Binary to text needs whole bytes: groups of 8 digits using only 0 and 1. It does not read 7-bit groups or UTF-16. Spaces and line breaks between groups are fine. If the digits are fine but the bytes do not form valid UTF-8 text, the tool tells you that instead.

Is my text sent anywhere?

The conversion runs in your browser as you type, so your text is not sent to a server to be converted. It is only sent if you choose to email yourself a copy of the result.

Do I have to give my email?

No. Your result shows right away and the tool is free to use. The email box below the result is optional and only there if you want a copy.