ASCII Converter

1. Choose a direction: text to codes, or codes to text.
2. Type some text, or enter a list of codes.
3. Read the result.
4. See the hexadecimal codes or the character count.

Here is what each result means:

ASCII, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a way of giving every basic text character a number so that computers can store and send it. The uppercase letter A is 65, a lowercase a is 97, the digit 0 is 48, and a space is 32. The original set covers the codes 0 to 127, which includes English letters, digits, punctuation and a few control characters.

Turning text into these codes is the foundation of how text is handled in computing. Every letter you type is stored as its number behind the scenes. Converting between text and codes is useful for programming, learning how character encoding works, or decoding a string of numbers back into a message.

Modern systems use Unicode, which extends this idea to every writing system in the world, with hundreds of thousands of characters. For the basic English characters, Unicode code points match ASCII exactly, so this converter shows the same familiar numbers while also handling characters beyond the original set.

It reads each character's code, or turns each code back into a character.

1. For text, each character's code point is read and listed in decimal and hexadecimal.
2. For codes, each number is turned into the character at that code point.
3. Codes may be separated by spaces or commas.

For the number side of codes, see the base converter and the number to words converter.

Convert the text Hi.

Result: the codes are 72 105, since H is 72 and i is 105. In hexadecimal that is 48 69. Going the other way, the codes 65 66 67 spell ABC.

A few characters and their codes.

The digits 0 to 9 run from 48, the uppercase letters from 65, and the lowercase letters from 97. Uppercase and lowercase are exactly 32 apart, which is why flipping one bit changes the case of a letter.

ASCII is the historic core; Unicode is the modern superset.

Because the first 128 Unicode code points are identical to ASCII, English text has the same codes in either system. Unicode simply adds far more characters on top, from accented letters to emoji, which this converter also handles.

The Characters

Each character has its own code, and uppercase differs from lowercase by 32.

Spaces and Punctuation

Spaces and symbols have codes too; a space is 32, not nothing.

Beyond ASCII

Accented letters and emoji have larger Unicode code points outside the 0 to 127 range.

Programming

Look up the code of a character, or decode a list of codes.

Learning

See how text is stored as numbers under the hood.

Puzzles and Decoding

Turn a string of numbers back into a hidden message.

1. Ignoring Case

A and a are different codes, 65 and 97. Case matters when converting.

2. Forgetting Spaces

A space is a real character with code 32, so it appears in the codes.

3. Mixing Decimal and Hex

The main codes are decimal; the hex version is shown separately. Do not mix them.

4. Out-of-range Codes

Valid code points run from 0 up to 1,114,111. Larger numbers are not valid.

5. Expecting Only ASCII

This also handles Unicode, so accented letters and emoji give codes above 127.

Conversions use Unicode code points, which match ASCII for the basic English characters.

The uppercase letter A is 65 in ASCII. Lowercase a is 97, exactly 32 higher, which is the constant gap between the cases.

Read each character's code: H is 72, i is 105, and so on. This converter lists the codes for any text you type, in decimal and hex.

Turn each number into the character at that code point. The codes 72 105 give Hi, and 65 66 67 give ABC.

A space is 32. It is a real character with its own code, so it appears whenever your text contains spaces.

ASCII covers codes 0 to 127 for basic English. Unicode extends to over a million code points for every writing system, but the first 128 are the same as ASCII.

It is by design. Making uppercase and lowercase differ by exactly 32 lets a computer switch case by changing a single bit in the code.

Yes. Those have Unicode code points above 127, and the converter shows their codes and turns codes back into them.

The main codes are decimal. A hexadecimal version is shown alongside, since programmers often use hex for character codes.

No. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere, unless you choose Save, which keeps the result only on this device.

• ASCII (Wikipedia).
• Unicode (Wikipedia).
• Code point (Wikipedia).