Convert Text to Binary, Instantly
Free online binary translator. Convert text, numbers and more between binary, decimal, hex and octal — no sign-up required.
ASCII & Binary Reference Table
Quick Reference
Look up any character's binary, decimal, hex and octal values at a glance.
| Char | Dec | Hex | Oct | Binary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 65 | 41 | 101 | 01000001 |
| Z | 90 | 5A | 132 | 01011010 |
| a | 97 | 61 | 141 | 01100001 |
| z | 122 | 7A | 172 | 01111010 |
| 0 | 48 | 30 | 060 | 00110000 |
| 9 | 57 | 39 | 071 | 00111001 |
| SPACE | 32 | 20 | 040 | 00100000 |
| ! | 33 | 21 | 041 | 00100001 |
Understanding Binary
Why · What · How
Everything you need to know about binary encoding — from the basics to practical use cases.
Why Binary?
Computers are built from billions of tiny switches that are either ON or OFF. Binary (base-2) maps perfectly to this physical reality — 1 means ON, 0 means OFF.
- Hardware simplicity: only two voltage states needed
- Noise resistance: easy to distinguish high vs low signal
- Foundation of all digital data — images, audio, video, text
What is Binary?
Binary is a positional numeral system using only two digits: 0 and 1. Each digit is called a bit. Eight bits form a byte, which can represent 256 different values (0–255).
- 1 bit = 0 or 1
- 1 byte = 8 bits = values 0 to 255
- Text is encoded by mapping each character to a number (ASCII / UTF-8)
How Does It Work?
To convert text to binary, each character is looked up in a character encoding table (like ASCII), its decimal code is found, then converted to an 8-bit binary number.
- Step 1: Find the character's decimal code (e.g. 'A' = 65)
- Step 2: Divide by 2 repeatedly, record remainders
- Step 3: Read remainders bottom-up → 65 = 01000001
Worked Example: "Hi!"
Let's convert the string "Hi!" to binary step by step. Each character maps to an ASCII code, which is then written as 8 binary digits.
| Char | Decimal | Binary | Powers of 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| H | 72 | 01001000 | 64+8 |
| i | 105 | 01101001 | 64+32+8+1 |
| ! | 33 | 00100001 | 32+1 |
Result: 01001000 01101001 00100001 — three bytes, 24 bits total.
FAQ