calculatorkong

Binary Translator

⇅ edits sync both ways

Per-character table
CharCode pointUTF-8 bytes
Text to bits
char → Unicode code point → UTF-8 bytes → 8 bits each · 1 hex digit = 4 bits

Underneath every message is a number, and underneath every number, bits. This translator walks text ⇄ binary ⇄ hex in both directions with full Unicode support — type in either box and the other follows.

The encoding pipeline

"Hi" → H is Unicode U+0048 → UTF-8 byte 01001000 → done. ASCII characters ride in one byte; é takes two, 中 three, 🦍 four — UTF-8's variable-width design keeps English compact while reaching all 150,000+ Unicode characters. The per-character table shows each step for your actual text.

Hex: binary for human eyes

Sixteen values per digit means one hex character per 4 bits — a byte is exactly two. 01001000 compresses to 48. It's the same information at a quarter the width, which is why memory dumps, color codes and MAC addresses all speak hex. The format toggle switches the code box between the two representations of the same bytes.

Decoding with honest errors

Going backwards, the translator validates before decoding: stray characters are named, incomplete bytes are counted ("length must be a multiple of 8"), and byte sequences that aren't legal UTF-8 are refused rather than mangled into replacement characters. Debugging encoded data needs errors that point somewhere.

Bits beyond text

For pure numbers across bases — binary 1010 = decimal 10 = hex A — the number base converter handles arbitrary size via BigInt. Timestamps, the other famous byte-encoded values, decode in the Unix timestamp converter. Dots and dashes? That's the Morse translator.

UTF-8 throughout; table shows the first 60 characters.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does text become binary? +

Each character is encoded to bytes (UTF-8 here), and each byte is written as 8 bits. “Hi” → H=01001000, i=01101001.

What is UTF-8? +

The dominant text encoding of the web. ASCII characters use one byte; accented letters, scripts and emoji use two to four. It is backward-compatible with ASCII, which is why English text looks identical in both.

How do I read binary back to text? +

Split into 8-bit bytes, decode each group as UTF-8. 01001000 01101001 → “Hi”. Spaces between bytes are optional for this translator.

Why does hex appear alongside binary? +

Hex is compressed binary — one hex digit per 4 bits, so a byte is exactly two hex characters. 01001000 = 0x48. Programmers read hex because 8 binary digits overflow human eyes.

How many characters can one byte represent? +

One byte (8 bits) has 256 values — enough for ASCII’s 128 plus extensions. Unicode’s 150,000+ characters need multi-byte encodings, which is exactly what UTF-8 provides.

What happens with emoji? +

They encode to 4 UTF-8 bytes: 🦍 becomes 11110000 10011111 10100110 10001101. This translator handles the full Unicode range, not just ASCII.

Powered by Calculator Kong ↗

Related Calculators