How the conversion works
With Text → Binary selected, type text and it is converted as you type. The tool encodes your text to UTF-8 bytes, then prints each byte as eight binary digits (zero-padded) with a single space between bytes. Switch to Binary → Text to go the other way: paste 8-bit groups separated by spaces, commas or new lines — or one continuous run of 0s and 1s — and get the decoded string back.
Worked example
Hi → 01001000 01101001. H is ASCII 72, which is 01001000; i is ASCII 105, which is 01101001. Feeding 01001000 01101001 into Binary → Text returns Hi.
ASCII and multi-byte characters
| Character | Code point | Binary (UTF-8) |
|---|---|---|
A | U+0041 (65) | 01000001 |
0 | U+0030 (48) | 00110000 |
| space | U+0020 (32) | 00100000 |
é | U+00E9 | 11000011 10101001 |
€ (euro) | U+20AC | 11100010 10000010 10101100 |
The first 128 code points (standard ASCII) are one byte each and start with a 0 bit. Anything above that is encoded as a lead byte plus one to three continuation bytes, each beginning 10.
String binary converter: choosing an encoding
| Encoding | é becomes | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| UTF-8 bytes | 11000011 10101001 | The default and what files, web pages and networks actually store. |
| 7-bit ASCII | not possible (ASCII only) | Classic ASCII exercises where every character is 7 bits, e.g. A = 1000001. |
| Character codes (UTF-16) | 11101001 | Matches JavaScript charCodeAt(i).toString(2) — the classic string-to-binary snippet in code tutorials. |
| Unicode code points | 11101001 | One group per character, including emoji (😀 = 17 bits). |
When you would use it
Teaching or learning how characters are stored, preparing examples for a computer-science class, debugging an encoding mismatch by inspecting the raw bytes, generating test vectors for a parser, or building a puzzle where the answer is hidden in binary. For other representations try Text to Hex, Text to ASCII, Base64 or the UTF-8 converter.
Common questions
How do I convert text to binary?
Type or paste the text with Text → Binary selected. Each character is encoded to UTF-8 and every byte is shown as eight 0s and 1s, separated by spaces; Hi becomes 01001000 01101001.
How do I convert binary back to text?
Choose Binary → Text and paste the binary. Groups can be separated by spaces, commas or new lines, or written as one continuous string whose length is a multiple of 8.
Are bytes separated by spaces or joined?
Separated by a single space by default, one 8-digit group per byte. Pick None, Comma or New line under Separator between groups to change it.
Does it support 7-bit ASCII output?
Yes. Choose 7-bit ASCII to write each ASCII character as seven bits. Characters outside ASCII cannot be written in 7 bits and are reported.
What is the difference between UTF-8 and character-code binary?
UTF-8 splits characters above 127 into several bytes (é is two bytes). Character-code mode writes each UTF-16 code unit as one binary number, as JavaScript’s charCodeAt does.
Is my text private?
Yes. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.