ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a 7-bit character encoding standard that assigns numeric code points (0–127) to 128 characters including letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters.

Why are binary values 8 bits long?

Although ASCII only requires 7 bits, values are conventionally zero-padded to 8 bits (one byte) to align with modern byte-oriented memory and data systems.

What happens with characters outside standard ASCII?

Characters with code points above 127 (such as accented letters or emoji) are not part of standard ASCII. This tool shows their Unicode code point in binary, which may exceed 8 bits.

Can I convert binary back to ASCII?

Yes — use the Binary Decoder tool on this site to reverse the process and convert binary strings back to readable text.

What does the "no spaces" output look like?

Each 8-bit group is concatenated without separators, producing a continuous binary stream such as 0100100001100101 for "He". This matches the raw bit format used in data transmission.

What is 01101001 in ASCII?

The binary value 01101001 equals decimal 105, which is the lowercase letter "i" in ASCII. Each 8-bit group maps to one character code point between 0 and 127.

ASCII to Binary Converter

Type or paste ASCII text and instantly see the 8-bit binary representation of each character.

ASCII Input

Space between bytes Show character table

Try:

Binary Output

Output will appear here

Character Breakdown

#	Char	Decimal	Hex	Binary (8-bit)

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Summary

This tool converts any ASCII text string into its binary equivalent, showing the 8-bit binary value for each character. Each character is mapped to its decimal code point (0–127 for standard ASCII) and rendered as an 8-digit binary string. The output can be displayed with or without spaces and copied instantly.

How it works

Type or paste your ASCII text into the input box.
Each character is mapped to its ASCII code point (0–127).
The code point is converted to its 8-bit binary string (e.g. "A" = 65 = 01000001).
Results are displayed side by side — character, decimal, and binary.
Toggle spacing or copy the raw binary output with one click.

Use cases

Learn how ASCII encoding maps characters to binary.
Debug low-level data serialization and bit manipulation.
Study computer science fundamentals and character encoding.
Verify binary payloads used in embedded systems or protocols.
Prepare examples for teaching binary representation.
Quickly look up the binary value of any printable character.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated: 2026-05-23 · Reviewed by Nham Vu