Understanding binary, hex, and octal
Computers store all data as binary — sequences of 0s and 1s. Each character in a text string has a numeric code (its ASCII or Unicode value), which can be expressed in different number bases. Binary (base 2) uses only 0 and 1. Hexadecimal (base 16) uses 0–9 and A–F, providing a compact representation. Octal (base 8) uses digits 0–7 and was historically common in early computing systems.
Space-separated bytes and padding
With space-separated bytes enabled, each character's binary value is separated by a space for readability (e.g., "Hi" becomes "01001000 01101001"). 8-bit padding ensures each byte is exactly 8 digits long by adding leading zeros — without it, "A" (65) would show as "1000001" instead of "01000001".
Bidirectional conversion
Type text to see its binary, hex, and octal forms, or paste binary code to decode it back to readable text. All conversions run locally in your browser — nothing is sent to any server.