How text becomes binary
Computers store every character as a number. In ASCII, capital A is 65, which is 01000001 in binary. Each binary digit (bit) is a power of two, read right to left: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128. For 65: 64 + 1, so the bits for 64 and 1 are on.
Characters outside basic English, such as é, ش, 中 or 😀, use more than one byte in UTF-8, the encoding used by almost every website. The translator shows each byte as 8 bits, so “é” becomes 11000011 10101001.
Examples
| Text | Binary |
|---|---|
| Hi | 01001000 01101001 |
| Hello | 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 |
| I love you | 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 |
| A / a | 01000001 / 01100001 |
Binary, hex, decimal and octal
- Binary (base 2) uses 0 and 1:
01001000. - Hexadecimal (base 16) uses 0–9 and A–F, two digits per byte:
48. Programmers use it because it’s compact. - Decimal (base 10) is the everyday number:
72. - Octal (base 8):
110.
Reading binary by hand
Split the binary into groups of 8. For each group, add the values of the positions with a 1 (128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1). Look the number up in an ASCII table: 72 is H, 105 is i.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert text to binary?
Type or paste your text. Each character is turned into 8-bit bytes, shown as groups of 0s and 1s.
How do I convert binary to text?
Paste the binary (groups of 8 digits, with or without spaces). The translator detects binary and shows the text.
How do you write hello in binary?
Hello is 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111.
Does it work with emoji and other languages?
Yes. Text is encoded as UTF-8, so any language and emoji work. Non-English characters take 2 to 4 bytes each.
How many bits are in a letter?
A basic English letter takes 8 bits (one byte). Letters with accents and other scripts take 16 to 32 bits in UTF-8.
Last updated October 2026 · More converters