ASCII Converter

What is ASCII?

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It defines numeric codes for 128 characters, including English letters, digits, punctuation, spaces, and control characters.

Standard ASCII uses values from 0 through 127. Each value fits within 7 bits, although ASCII values are commonly shown as 8-bit binary with a leading zero for readability. For example, uppercase A is decimal 65, hexadecimal 41, binary 01000001, and octal 101.

How to convert text to ASCII codes

1. Enter source text Enter or paste text into the input area.
2. Select output format Select Decimal, Hexadecimal, Binary, or Octal as the output format.
3. Choose a delimiter Choose how codes should be separated, such as spaces, commas, new lines, or a custom delimiter.
4. Copy or inspect results Copy the result or inspect individual characters in the character details table.

Text to ASCII code examples

Each standard ASCII character has the same numeric value regardless of whether that value is displayed in decimal, hexadecimal, binary, or octal.

With spaces between values, Hello becomes:

• Decimal: 72 101 108 108 111
• Hexadecimal: 48 65 6C 6C 6F
• Binary: 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111
• Octal: 110 145 154 154 157

How to convert ASCII codes back to text

You can also reverse the conversion and turn numeric character codes back into readable text.

1. Switch to decode mode Select Codes → Text mode from the top switcher.
2. Paste character codes Enter your numeric sequence, such as 84 114 121.
3. Select the numeric format Choose Decimal, Hexadecimal, Binary, or Octal, or use automatic detection when the input format is clear.
4. Review the decoded text The converter maps each value back to its character. In this example, 84 maps to T, 114 to r, and 121 to y, producing Try.

ASCII vs Unicode

Standard ASCII contains only 128 codes from 0 through 127. It covers basic English letters, digits, punctuation, whitespace, and control characters.

Unicode supports a much larger range of characters, including accented letters, non-Latin scripts, currency symbols, mathematical symbols, and emoji. The first 128 Unicode code points match standard ASCII values exactly.

• A: ASCII 65 / Unicode U+0041
• é: Unicode U+00E9 — not standard ASCII
• ₹: Unicode U+20B9 — not standard ASCII
• 😀: Unicode U+1F600 — not standard ASCII

If the input contains a character outside the ASCII range, the tool should label it as a Unicode code point instead of incorrectly calling it an ASCII value.

Decimal, hexadecimal, binary, and octal ASCII values

The same character code can be displayed using different number systems:

• Decimal: Base 10. Uppercase A is 65.
• Hexadecimal: Base 16 using digits 0–9 and letters A–F. A is 41 or 0x41.
• Binary: Base 2 using only 0 and 1. A is commonly shown as 01000001.
• Octal: Base 8 using digits 0–7. A is 101.

Hexadecimal and binary are especially useful when inspecting bytes, debugging low-level data, or working with embedded systems. Decimal is often easier for learning and quick character-code lookups.

ASCII control characters and whitespace

Not every ASCII value is a visible character. Codes 0–31 and 127 are control characters.

• TAB: Decimal 9, hexadecimal 09
• LF (Line Feed): Decimal 10, hexadecimal 0A
• CR (Carriage Return): Decimal 13, hexadecimal 0D
• ESC (Escape): Decimal 27, hexadecimal 1B
• SPACE: Decimal 32, hexadecimal 20

The character details view should use labels such as TAB, LF, and SPACE so invisible characters are easy to identify.

Use cases: when ASCII conversion is useful

• Character lookup: Find the decimal, hexadecimal, binary, or octal value of a character.
• Debugging text data: Inspect spaces, tabs, line endings, and other characters that may not be visible in normal text.
• Embedded development: Prepare or inspect character values used in serial communication and byte-oriented applications.
• Log inspection: Decode numeric character values found in diagnostic output or low-level data.
• Learning: Compare how the same ASCII character appears in different number systems.
• Testing: Create predictable numeric character sequences for parsers, protocols, or application test cases.

Common ASCII conversion mistakes

• Calling values above 127 standard ASCII: Standard ASCII ends at decimal 127. Values from 128–255 may have different meanings in legacy single-byte encodings and should not automatically be labeled ASCII characters.
• Confusing ASCII with UTF-8: ASCII defines character codes from 0–127. UTF-8 is a Unicode encoding that represents those same ASCII characters using identical single-byte values.
• Removing delimiters: A decimal string such as 72101108 is ambiguous because individual character codes can contain different numbers of digits. Use spaces, commas, or new lines between decimal values.
• Dropping binary padding: 1000001 and 01000001 represent the same numeric value, but the 8-bit form makes byte boundaries easier to read.
• Treating Unicode characters as ASCII: Characters such as ₹, é, and emoji require Unicode handling and should be identified separately.

ASCII reference table (0–127)

Standard ASCII contains 128 values. Codes 0–31 and 127 are control characters, while codes 32–126 are printable characters.

Use the expandable reference table to compare decimal, hexadecimal, binary, octal, and character names.

Privacy and browser-based processing

Text and numeric character-code conversion runs in your browser. TryFormatter does not need to upload the entered text to its server to perform the conversion.