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Convert Text to Morse Code

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To convert text to Morse code, each letter is replaced by its own pattern of dots and dashes. The word SOS becomes … — …, three short signals, three long, three short. Morse code was built in the 1830s to send messages over a telegraph wire using nothing but short and long pulses, and it still works the same way today. This guide explains how Morse code works, gives the full alphabet, and shows how to convert text to Morse code in one step.

In this guide

What Morse code is

Morse code is a way of representing letters, numbers, and punctuation as sequences of two signals: a short one called a dot and a long one called a dash. It was created for the electric telegraph, where the only thing you could send down the wire was a pulse that was either short or long. With just those two signals, any message can be spelled out one character at a time.

It is one of the oldest character encodings still in use, and it belongs to the same family of text conversions covered in our guide to online converters: text in, a different representation out.

How it works: dots, dashes and timing

Each character is a pattern of dots and dashes. The letter A is dot dash, written .-, and the letter B is dash dot dot dot, written -… Timing keeps them apart. A dash lasts about three times as long as a dot, a short gap separates the dots and dashes inside one letter, a longer gap separates letters, and a longer gap still separates words. That spacing is what lets a listener tell where one letter ends and the next begins.

Convert text to Morse code

Looking up each letter by hand is slow, so the text to Morse code converter does it instantly. You type or paste your text, and it returns the matching dots and dashes, correctly spaced between letters and words. It is the quick way to turn a name, a message, or a phrase into Morse without memorising the alphabet.

The Morse code alphabet

This is the International Morse Code used worldwide. Letters and digits each have a fixed pattern.

LetterCodeLetterCodeDigitCode
A.-N-.0—–
B-…O—1.—-
C-.-.P.–.2..—
D-..Q–.-3…–
E.R.-.4….-
F..-.S…5…..
G–.T–6-….
H….U..-7–…
I..V…-8—..
J.—W.–9—-.
K-.-X-..-
L.-..Y-.–
M—Z–..

SOS and why E is a single dot

The most famous Morse signal is SOS, written … — …, chosen as a distress call because the pattern is simple and unmistakable even in poor conditions. It is easy to send and easy to recognise, which is exactly what you want in an emergency.

Look at the alphabet and you will notice the most common English letters have the shortest codes. E is a single dot and T is a single dash, while rare letters like Q and Y are four signals long. That was deliberate: Morse gave frequent letters short patterns so that ordinary messages could be sent as quickly as possible.

Where Morse is still used

Morse is no longer the backbone of communication it once was, but it has not disappeared. Amateur radio operators still use it because it carries further than voice on a weak signal. It appears in aviation and maritime identification beacons, and it remains a reliable last resort, since a dot and a dash can be sent with a light, a sound, or a tap when nothing else is available.

Free converter used in this guide

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert text to Morse code?

Replace each letter with its dot-and-dash pattern from the Morse alphabet. The text to Morse code converter does it instantly, with correct spacing between letters and words.

What is SOS in Morse code?

SOS is … — …, three dots, three dashes, three dots. It was chosen as a distress signal because the pattern is simple and hard to mistake.

What is the difference between a dot and a dash?

A dot is a short signal and a dash is a long one, lasting about three times as long as a dot. The timing between them marks where one letter ends and the next begins.

Why is the letter E just one dot?

E is the most common letter in English, so Morse gave it the shortest possible code to make everyday messages faster to send.

Is Morse code still used today?

Yes. It is used in amateur radio, in some aviation and maritime beacons, and as a reliable emergency signal that can be sent by light, sound, or touch.

Convert Binary to Text and Text to Binary

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To convert binary to text, you turn each group of eight bits back into the character it stands for. Computers store every letter and symbol as a number, and that number is held in binary, so a string like 01001000 01101001 is really just the word Hi written the way a machine keeps it. This guide shows how to convert binary to text and text to binary, explains the simple rule that connects the two, and points you to a tool for each direction.

In this guide

How text and binary connect

Every character has a number assigned to it by a standard called ASCII. The capital letter A is 65, lowercase a is 97, the digit 0 is 48, and a space is 32. A computer then stores that number in binary, using eight bits, which is one byte, for each character.

So converting between text and binary is really two steps joined together: character to number to binary, or binary to number to character. The numbers are the bridge, and they come from the same ASCII table covered in our guide to number systems. Once you see that text is just numbers in disguise, both conversions make sense.

Convert binary to text

To read binary as text, you split the string into groups of eight bits, turn each group into its decimal number, and look up the character that number represents. The group 01001000 is 72, which is the letter H.

Doing that by hand for a whole message is slow and easy to slip on, so the binary to text converter does it in one step. Paste the binary, and it returns the readable text. For binary that uses extended characters, the binary to UTF-8 decoder handles the wider character set, and the binary to ASCII converter is another route to the same result.

Convert text to binary

The reverse works the same way backwards: take each character, find its number, and write that number in eight bits. The letter H is 72, which in binary is 01001000.

The text to binary converter turns any text into its binary codes instantly, and the ASCII to binary converter does the same job. You type or paste the text, and you get back a binary string, one byte per character.

ASCII and UTF-8

Plain ASCII covers the basic English letters, digits, and common symbols, and each fits in a single byte. That is why a simple message converts cleanly to eight bits per character.

Modern text often goes beyond that, with accented letters, other alphabets, and emoji. These use a standard called UTF-8, which lets a single character take more than one byte when it needs to. If your binary represents anything beyond basic English, the UTF-8 decoder is the tool that reads it correctly, because a plain ASCII reading would only get the simplest characters right.

A worked example

Take the word Hi. The letter H is 72, which is 01001000 in binary. The letter i is 105, which is 01101001. Put them together and Hi becomes 01001000 01101001. Run that binary back through the binary to text converter and you get Hi again. The conversion is lossless, so nothing is added or removed in either direction.

Free converters used in this guide

Where this is used

Converting between binary and text comes up in learning and teaching how computers represent data, in puzzles and capture-the-flag challenges where a message is hidden as binary, and in debugging, where seeing the raw bits of a string helps explain an unexpected result. It is also a quick way to understand why a file that looks like gibberish is really just text the program read with the wrong rules.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert binary to text?

Split the binary into groups of eight bits, turn each group into its number, and look up the matching character. A binary to text converter does all three steps for you at once.

How many bits is one character?

One basic ASCII character is eight bits, which is one byte. Characters beyond basic English use UTF-8 and can take more than one byte.

What is the binary for the letter A?

The capital letter A is the number 65, which in eight-bit binary is 01000001.

Is converting binary to text reversible?

Yes. The conversion is lossless, so text converted to binary and back returns exactly the original text.

Why does my binary not convert correctly?

Usually the bits are not grouped into clean bytes of eight, or the text uses characters beyond basic ASCII. For the second case, use a UTF-8 decoder rather than a plain ASCII reading.