Binary Converter

Convert text to binary (0s and 1s) and binary back to text — plus decimal, hex and octal conversions.

About Binary Conversion

Binary is the base-2 number system used by computers internally — every piece of data, instruction, and value in a computer is ultimately represented as binary digits (bits), either 0 or 1. Understanding binary is foundational to computer science, embedded programming, networking, and understanding how computers process data.

When converting text to binary, each character is first converted to its ASCII or UTF-8 byte value, then that byte is expressed as an 8-bit binary number. For example, 'H' is ASCII 72, which is 01001000 in 8-bit binary. The word "Hello" becomes: 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111.

The number base converter section lets you convert any integer between binary (base 2), decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16), and octal (base 8). Type in any field and the other three update instantly — useful for understanding processor registers, memory addresses, file permissions (octal), and network masks.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert binary to decimal manually?
Each binary digit represents a power of 2, from right to left: 2⁰=1, 2¹=2, 2²=4, 2³=8, 2⁴=16, 2⁵=32, 2⁶=64, 2⁷=128. For 01001000: 0+0+0+1×8+0+0+1×64+0 = 8+64 = 72 (the ASCII code for 'H').
What is octal used for?
Octal (base 8) is most commonly used for Unix/Linux file permissions. The three permission groups (owner, group, other) each have 3 bits (read=4, write=2, execute=1), which maps naturally to a single octal digit. So chmod 755 means 111 101 101 in binary.
Why are computers binary instead of decimal?
Binary maps directly to the physical states of electronic components: a transistor is either on (1) or off (0). Using two states is far simpler and more reliable than trying to represent 10 distinct voltage levels for decimal digits. All digital logic gates (AND, OR, NOT, XOR) operate on binary values.

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