Free Text to Binary Converter
Convert text to binary (0s and 1s) or decode binary back to text. See how data is stored at the bit level in QR codes.
Text → Binary
Binary → Text
Separate bytes with spaces, commas, or enter them continuously
Common ASCII Binary Values
| Char | Binary | Decimal | Char | Binary | Decimal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 01000001 | 65 | a | 01100001 | 97 | |
| B | 01000010 | 66 | b | 01100010 | 98 | |
| 0 | 00110000 | 48 | 9 | 00111001 | 57 | |
| (space) | 00100000 | 32 | ! | 00100001 | 33 |
How Text is Stored as Binary
Computers store all data — text, images, audio — as sequences of bits (binary digits: 0 or 1). Text characters are mapped to numbers using encoding standards like ASCII (7-bit, 128 characters) or UTF-8 (variable-length, supports all Unicode characters).
In ASCII, each character is represented by 7 bits (padded to 8 bits / 1 byte). For example, the letter "A" is decimal 65, which is 01000001 in binary.
QR codes and barcodes ultimately encode data as binary patterns — black modules represent 1s and white modules represent 0s. Understanding binary helps you grasp how data is stored at the most fundamental level.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does text become binary?
Each character is looked up as a number, and that number is written in base 2. Capital A is 65 in ASCII, which is 01000001 in eight bits. Everything a computer stores is this process applied repeatedly — text, images, the contents of a QR code — with the encoding deciding which number goes with which character.
Why are some characters eight bits and others more?
Because of UTF-8. The first 128 characters, which is ASCII, fit in a single byte, so ordinary English text is eight bits per character. Anything beyond that — accented letters, currency symbols other than the dollar, Chinese characters, emoji — uses two, three or four bytes. An emoji is commonly four bytes, and some are longer still because they are several code points joined together. This is why a message that looks short can overflow a field that counts bytes.
Why does my binary fail to convert back to text?
Almost always because the bit count is not a multiple of eight, which means a digit was dropped or added somewhere. The other common cause is a stray character — a letter O in place of a zero, or a non-breaking space copied from a document. Grouping the bits into bytes separated by single spaces makes both problems easy to see.
Is the binary in this tool the same as what is inside a QR code?
It is the same idea, but a QR code adds several layers on top. The text is first packed using one of four encoding modes — numeric, alphanumeric, byte or kanji — and the compact modes are noticeably denser than eight bits per character: alphanumeric mode packs two characters into eleven bits. Error-correction codewords are then computed and added, and the whole stream is masked before it is laid out in the grid. So the bits in a real symbol are a transformation of these bits, not a copy.
Why does encoding only digits fit so much more in a QR code?
Because numeric mode stores three digits in ten bits, about 3.3 bits per digit, against eight for a general byte. That is why a QR code holds up to 7,089 digits but only 4,296 alphanumeric characters or 2,953 bytes. Anything that forces byte mode — a single lowercase letter in an otherwise uppercase string will do it — costs you that advantage across the whole payload. Our QR code capacity calculator shows the effect for a specific string.
What is the difference between ASCII and Unicode?
ASCII is a 1960s standard covering 128 characters: English letters, digits, punctuation and some control codes. Unicode is the modern successor and assigns a number to essentially every character in every writing system, now well past 140,000 of them. UTF-8 is how those numbers get written as bytes, and it was designed so that ASCII text is byte-identical in UTF-8 — which is why old data still works.
Can I convert binary to hexadecimal instead?
Hexadecimal is just binary in a shorter notation: four bits become one hex digit, so 11111111 is FF. It is the standard way to read raw data because it is about a quarter the length with no information lost. Our hash generator and Base64 tools both display output in hex or Base64 for the same reason.
Does anything I paste here leave my browser?
No. The conversion is plain JavaScript running locally, with no upload, no logging and no storage. Nothing you type is transmitted.
Understand How QR Codes Store Data
QR codes store data as binary patterns. The Scan & Generate app decodes them instantly — scan any code to see the underlying data.