Binary to Text Converter
Enter text or binary and choose a direction to convert between plain text and 8-bit binary.
Last updated: September 22, 2026
Frequently asked questions
How is text converted to binary?
Each character's numeric code (from the ASCII/Unicode table) is converted to base-2 and padded to 8 bits - 'H' has code 72, which is 01001000 in binary.
Why 8 bits per character?
8 bits (1 byte) covers the standard ASCII character set (0-255), which includes all English letters, numbers, and common symbols.
What happens if I enter a binary string that isn't a multiple of 8 bits?
Standard text encoding (ASCII/UTF-8) represents each character as a full 8-bit byte, so a binary string that isn't a clean multiple of 8 bits can't be converted to valid characters and will likely produce an error or unexpected result - double-check your binary input is grouped correctly.
Can this convert binary to numbers as well as text?
This tool converts binary directly to readable text using standard 8-bit character encoding (ASCII/UTF-8). To convert binary to a plain numeric value instead, treat the binary string as a base-2 number and convert it to base-10 using a binary-to-decimal calculation instead.
Do the binary groups need spaces between each 8-bit byte?
Yes, when converting binary to text - each character's binary should be separated (like "01001000 01101001" for "Hi") so the converter knows where one character's 8 bits end and the next begins.
What's the binary for the letter 'A'?
01000001 - 'A' has ASCII code 65, and 65 in binary is 1000001, padded to a full 8 bits by adding a leading zero.
Is this the same as an 'ASCII to binary converter' or 'text to binary translator'?
Yes - all of those describe the same underlying process of mapping each character to its numeric character code and expressing that code in base-2, which is exactly what this tool's text-to-binary mode does.
I need to convert a number (not text) between binary, decimal, and hex - is that this tool?
No - this tool encodes text as binary (each letter becomes its 8-bit character code) and decodes it back, it doesn't do general numeric base conversion or bitwise math. For converting a number like 255 between binary/octal/decimal/hex, or for AND/OR/XOR/shift operations, use the Number Base Converter instead.