Text to Binary

How text becomes numbers

A computer stores no letters, only numbers. Text is turned into bytes by an encoding — today almost always UTF-8 — and each byte can be written in any base you like. Binary shows the actual bits; hexadecimal is the short form programmers read; decimal is what most people recognise.

The bases

• Binary: eight digits per byte, e.g. 01010011 for "S"
• Hexadecimal: two digits per byte, 53 for the same letter
• Decimal: 0–255 per byte, 83 for "S"
• Octal: three digits per byte, 123 for "S"

Worked example

"Softyfy" is seven ASCII characters, so seven bytes: 01010011 01101111 01100110 01110100 01111001 01100110 01111001. In hex that is 53 6f 66 74 79 66 79. A Bangla letter such as "ক" needs three bytes in UTF-8, which is why the character count and the byte count differ.

How to use the converter

1. Pick a direction — text to code, or code back to text.
2. Choose the base and how the bytes should be separated.
3. Paste and copy. When decoding, spaces, commas and hyphens between bytes are all accepted.

Points worth knowing

• ASCII letters take one byte; Bangla, Arabic and most emoji take three or four. The counts above show both.
• Binary is a representation, not encryption. Anyone can read it back — never use it to hide anything.
• For binary that stands for numbers rather than text, use the Binary to Decimal converter instead.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert text to binary?

Each character becomes its UTF-8 byte value written in base 2, eight digits per byte. The letter "S" is 83, which is 01010011. Paste your text above and it is done as you type.

Does this work with Bangla text?

Yes. The converter uses UTF-8, so Bangla, accented letters and emoji convert correctly — they simply take more than one byte each.

How do I read binary back into text?

Switch the direction to "code back to text" and paste the bytes. Spaces, commas or hyphens between them are fine, and so is one long run of digits.