Text to Binary
Translate text to binary code and binary back to text.
Text to Binary Converter – String to Binary and Binary to String
Convert any text into binary code – the ones and zeros a computer actually stores – or paste binary and read it as text again. It works for single words, whole paragraphs, accented letters, and emoji, and the output updates as you type. Developers often search for it as a string to binary or binary to string converter; it is the same thing.
How text becomes binary
Every character is first turned into a number, and that number is written in base 2. With UTF-8, the encoding used by the web, the word Hi is stored as the bytes 72 and 105, which in binary are 01001000 and 01101001. Each group of eight bits is one byte. Letters, digits, and punctuation from the ASCII range always fit in one byte whose first bit is 0. Other characters use several bytes: é becomes 11000011 10101001, and 👋 becomes four bytes starting with 11110 – the leading bits tell a decoder how many bytes belong together.
Options
- Encoding: UTF-8 bytes – the standard choice. Every group is exactly 8 bits and matches what is saved in files and sent over networks.
- Encoding: Unicode code points – one binary number per character, without UTF-8 multi-byte splitting.
€becomes10000010101100(8364). Useful for maths and teaching exercises. - Separator – put a space, comma, or new line between bytes, or output one continuous bit string.
Reading binary back
Paste binary groups separated by spaces, commas, or line breaks, or a single unbroken string whose length is a multiple of eight. Anything other than 0, 1, and separators produces a clear error, and invalid UTF-8 byte sequences are reported instead of being turned into question marks.
Where binary text is used
Computer-science courses, digital-electronics labs, escape rooms and puzzles, binary-themed greeting cards and tattoos, and debugging bit flags all involve converting text to bits. For the same data in hexadecimal – four times shorter – use String to Hex, and to see each character's code in every base use Char to ASCII.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I convert a letter to binary by hand?
Look up its ASCII code and write it in base 2 with eight digits. 'A' is 65 = 64 + 1, so it is 01000001. 'a' is 97 = 64 + 32 + 1, so it is 01100001 – the only difference from 'A' is the bit worth 32.
Why does an emoji produce four groups of eight bits?
In UTF-8, characters outside ASCII need two to four bytes. The 👋 emoji is U+1F44B, which UTF-8 stores as the four bytes 11110000 10011111 10010001 10001011. Switch Encoding to Unicode code points to get a single binary number (11111010001001011) instead.
Can I decode binary without spaces?
Yes, as long as it is UTF-8 bytes and the total length is a multiple of 8 – a continuous string like 0100100001101001 is split into bytes automatically. Code-point mode needs a separator because the numbers can have different lengths.
Is 'string to binary' the same as 'text to binary'?
Yes. 'String' is the programming term for a piece of text, so String to Binary and Binary to String converters do exactly what this page does.