About this tool
This converter works at the byte level using UTF-8 encoding — the same encoding the web uses everywhere. Text-to-binary and text-to-hex both produce the exact byte representation of your input; the reverse directions decode those bytes back into readable text. Everything runs locally in your browser.
How to use the Binary & Hex Converter
- Pick a direction from the dropdown.
- Type or paste your input — plain text, or space-separated binary/hex values.
- Copy the result — it updates as you type.
Common use cases
- Learning how text is actually represented at the byte level
- Decoding a binary or hex string from a puzzle, CTF challenge, or old system dump
- Converting a short message to binary or hex for a school assignment or novelty project
- Quickly checking the hex byte values behind a piece of text for debugging
Binary vs. hex: the same data, two formats
Every character in your text becomes one or more bytes, and both binary and hex just display those same bytes differently. Binary shows each byte as 8 digits of 0s and 1s (like 01001000 for "H"), which is how computers actually store the value. Hex compresses that same byte into just 2 characters using digits 0-9 and letters A-F (the same "H" becomes 48), which is why hex is the more common choice when humans need to read or write byte values — it's far more compact for the same information.
Things to watch out for
When decoding, make sure binary values are space-separated in 8-digit groups and hex values are space-separated in 2-character groups — running the digits together without spaces makes the boundaries between characters ambiguous. Characters outside the basic English alphabet (accented letters, emoji, and other Unicode symbols) can take up more than one byte in UTF-8, so their binary or hex representation will be longer than a single 8-digit or 2-character group.
Frequently asked questions
Each character is encoded as one byte (8 bits) using its UTF-8/ASCII value, so every letter, number, or symbol converts to exactly 8 binary digits.
Both represent the same underlying byte values for your text — binary shows each byte as 8 digits of 0s and 1s, while hex shows the same byte as 2 hexadecimal digits (0-9, A-F), which is more compact and easier to read.
Yes — it uses UTF-8 encoding, which covers virtually any character, including accented letters, symbols, and emoji, though some characters may take up more than one byte.