How binary encoding works
Computers store all information — text, images, audio — as sequences of 0s and 1s. A single 0 or 1 is called a bit. Eight bits grouped together form a byte, which can represent 256 distinct values (0–255). Text encoding is the system that maps bytes to human-readable characters.
This converter represents each byte as an 8-character group of 0s and 1s, with groups separated by spaces. For example, the letter H has a decimal value of 72, which in binary is 01001000.
ASCII vs. UTF-8 — what's the difference?
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) defines 128 characters using values 0–127. It covers the English alphabet, digits, punctuation, and basic control characters. One byte per character, always.
UTF-8 is a superset of ASCII that encodes over a million characters — every letter from every language, symbols, emoji, and more. Characters 0–127 are identical to ASCII (one byte each). Characters beyond that use 2, 3, or 4 bytes per character, encoded as specific multi-byte sequences.
Common character reference
| Character | Decimal | Binary |
|---|---|---|
| A | 65 | 01000001 |
| B | 66 | 01000010 |
| Z | 90 | 01011010 |
| a | 97 | 01100001 |
| z | 122 | 01111010 |
| 0 | 48 | 00110000 |
| 9 | 57 | 00111001 |
| Space | 32 | 00100000 |
| ! | 33 | 00100001 |
Frequently asked questions
Why are binary groups always 8 digits?
One byte is 8 bits. Text encoding uses whole bytes as the unit of storage, so each character maps to one or more complete 8-bit groups. A binary string that isn't a multiple of 8 bits would be an incomplete byte and cannot be decoded.
What happens if I enter binary that isn't valid UTF-8?
Not every sequence of bytes is valid UTF-8. UTF-8 has specific rules for multi-byte sequences — certain byte values can only appear in specific positions. The converter detects this and shows an error. Switching to ASCII mode will accept any byte in the 0–127 range without UTF-8 validation.
Can this converter handle emoji?
Yes, in UTF-8 mode. Emoji are encoded as 4-byte sequences. For example, 😂 is encoded as the bytes 11110000 10011111 10011000 10000010. ASCII mode cannot handle emoji since they have code points far above 127.
Is there a length limit?
There is no hard limit imposed by the converter — it processes as much text as your browser can handle in memory. Very large inputs may slow down live updates.