ASCII Converter — Encode, Decode & View ASCII Table
Encode text to ASCII codes in decimal, hex, binary, and octal. Decode ASCII back to text. Includes interactive ASCII table with search and filtering.
Features
- ✓Encode text to ASCII codes (decimal, hex, binary, octal)
- ✓Decode ASCII codes back to text
- ✓Auto-detect input format
- ✓Multiple separator options (space, comma, prefix)
- ✓Bidirectional conversion support
- ✓Complete ASCII table reference (0-127)
- ✓Search and filter ASCII characters
- ✓Click to copy any value
- ✓Support for control characters
- ✓All data processed locally in your browser
How to Use
- 1Convert mode: Enter text to encode to ASCII codes.
- 2Convert mode: Enter ASCII codes to decode to text.
- 3Select output format (decimal, hex, binary, octal).
- 4Choose separator style (space, comma, or prefix).
- 5View mode: Browse the complete ASCII table.
- 6Search for a specific character in the ASCII table by name or value.
- 7Click any character in the table to copy its value in all formats.
- 8Use auto-detect to let the tool figure out whether your input is text or codes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ASCII?
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ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard that assigns numeric values to characters. It uses 7 bits to represent 128 characters, including control characters (0-31, 127) and printable characters (32-126). ASCII is the foundation of modern character encodings like UTF-8.
How do I encode text to ASCII?
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Select 'Text to ASCII' mode, enter your text, choose the output format (decimal, hexadecimal, binary, or octal), and select a separator style. The tool will convert each character to its ASCII code. Non-ASCII characters (code > 127) are automatically filtered out.
How do I decode ASCII to text?
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Select 'ASCII to Text' mode, paste your ASCII codes, and choose the input format or use auto-detect. The tool supports decimal (72 101 108 108 111), hex (0x48 0x65 0x6C 0x6C 0x6F), binary (0b01001000 0b01100101), and octal formats.
What are control characters?
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Control characters (0-31 and 127) are non-printable characters used for device control and data formatting. Common ones include: NUL (null), TAB (horizontal tab), LF (line feed/newline), CR (carriage return), and ESC (escape). They don't display as visible characters but control text formatting and device behavior.
What's the difference between ASCII and Unicode?
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ASCII uses 7 bits for 128 characters, only covering basic English letters, digits, and symbols. Unicode is a universal character set supporting 143,000+ characters from all languages. UTF-8 is a Unicode encoding that's backward-compatible with ASCII (ASCII values 0-127 are identical in UTF-8). Modern systems use UTF-8, not pure ASCII.
What are the printable ASCII characters?
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Printable ASCII characters range from 32 (Space) to 126 (~). This includes uppercase letters (A-Z: 65-90), lowercase letters (a-z: 97-122), digits (0-9: 48-57), punctuation marks, and common symbols. Characters 0-31 and 127 are non-printable control characters used for text formatting and device control.
How do I convert a string to hex ASCII manually?
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Each character has an ASCII code. Convert each code to hexadecimal. For example, 'Hello': H=72→0x48, e=101→0x65, l=108→0x6C, l=108→0x6C, o=111→0x6F. Result: 0x48 0x65 0x6C 0x6C 0x6F. Use the prefix separator option to display hex values with 0x prefix automatically.
What is the ASCII table used for in programming?
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ASCII is fundamental in programming for: character encoding and decoding, network protocols (HTTP, SMTP), sorting algorithms (ASCII order determines alphabetical sort), data serialization, file format specifications, and low-level system programming. Understanding ASCII is essential for debugging binary data and text processing.
What are escape sequences and how do they relate to ASCII?
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Escape sequences use ASCII characters to represent special values in strings. Common ones: \n (LF = 10, newline), \t (TAB = 9, horizontal tab), \r (CR = 13, carriage return), \0 (NUL = 0, null character). These are how programming languages represent ASCII control characters in source code.
Can I encode non-ASCII characters like Chinese or emoji?
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This tool only handles standard ASCII (0-127). Characters outside this range, like Chinese (需要 3+ bytes in UTF-8) or emoji (4 bytes), use multi-byte encodings beyond ASCII. For those, use a Unicode/UTF-8 encoder. This tool will filter out or skip non-ASCII characters during conversion.
How do I decode a hex ASCII string back to text?
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Select 'ASCII to Text' mode, choose 'Hex' as input format, and paste your hex values. The tool auto-detects formats like 48 65 6C 6C 6F, 0x48 0x65 0x6C 0x6C 0x6F, or \x48\x65\x6C\x6C\x6F. All decode to 'Hello'. Mixed separators and formats are supported.
What is the practical difference between binary and hex in ASCII?
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Binary (base-2) shows each byte as 8 bits: 'H' = 01001000. Hex (base-16) is more compact: 'H' = 48 (2 hex digits vs 8 binary digits). Programmers prefer hex because it's shorter yet each hex digit represents exactly 4 bits, making it easy to convert between hex and binary mentally.
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