ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard that represents text in computers. It uses 7 bits to represent 128 characters including uppercase and lowercase letters, digits 0-9, punctuation marks, and control characters.

What are ASCII control characters?

ASCII control characters (codes 0-31 and 127) are non-printable characters used to control text formatting and communication. Common examples include: NUL (0) - null, LF (10) - line feed/newline, CR (13) - carriage return, TAB (9) - horizontal tab, and ESC (27) - escape.

How do I find the ASCII code of any character?

Use our converter above by typing or pasting the character and clicking 'Text → ASCII'. Alternatively, in most programming languages you can use functions like ord() in Python, charCodeAt() in JavaScript, or (int)char in C/C++ to get a character's ASCII value.

ASCII Converter

Last updated: February 2026

Last verified: 2026-01-12 • Updated for 2026/26 tax year

Convert text to ASCII codes (decimal, hexadecimal, binary) and back. Essential tool for programmers, developers, and anyone working with character encoding.

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ASCII Code Converter

Text to ASCII & ASCII to Text

Text Input

Decimal (Base 10)

Hexadecimal (Base 16)

Binary (Base 2)

Converted Text

Quick Tip Type any text and click Convert to see its ASCII representation in decimal, hexadecimal, and binary. Use the mode tabs to convert codes back to text.

Type	Range
Control	0-31, 127
Digits 0-9	48-57
Uppercase A-Z	65-90
Lowercase a-z	97-122

Complete ASCII Table

The standard ASCII table contains 128 characters (0-127). Characters 0-31 and 127 are control characters (non-printable), while 32-126 are printable characters.

Printable ASCII Characters (32-126)

Char	Dec	Hex	Bin	Char	Dec	Hex	Bin	Char	Dec	Hex	Bin
Space	32	20	00100000	@	64	40	01000000	`	96	60	01100000
!	33	21	00100001	A	65	41	01000001	a	97	61	01100001
"	34	22	00100010	B	66	42	01000010	b	98	62	01100010
#	35	23	00100011	C	67	43	01000011	c	99	63	01100011
$	36	24	00100100	D	68	44	01000100	d	100	64	01100100
%	37	25	00100101	E	69	45	01000101	e	101	65	01100101
&	38	26	00100110	F	70	46	01000110	f	102	66	01100110
'	39	27	00100111	G	71	47	01000111	g	103	67	01100111
(	40	28	00101000	H	72	48	01001000	h	104	68	01101000
)	41	29	00101001	I	73	49	01001001	i	105	69	01101001
*	42	2A	00101010	J	74	4A	01001010	j	106	6A	01101010
+	43	2B	00101011	K	75	4B	01001011	k	107	6B	01101011
,	44	2C	00101100	L	76	4C	01001100	l	108	6C	01101100
-	45	2D	00101101	M	77	4D	01001101	m	109	6D	01101101
.	46	2E	00101110	N	78	4E	01001110	n	110	6E	01101110
/	47	2F	00101111	O	79	4F	01001111	o	111	6F	01101111
0	48	30	00110000	P	80	50	01010000	p	112	70	01110000
1	49	31	00110001	Q	81	51	01010001	q	113	71	01110001
2	50	32	00110010	R	82	52	01010010	r	114	72	01110010
3	51	33	00110011	S	83	53	01010011	s	115	73	01110011
4	52	34	00110100	T	84	54	01010100	t	116	74	01110100
5	53	35	00110101	U	85	55	01010101	u	117	75	01110101
6	54	36	00110110	V	86	56	01010110	v	118	76	01110110
7	55	37	00110111	W	87	57	01010111	w	119	77	01110111
8	56	38	00111000	X	88	58	01011000	x	120	78	01111000
9	57	39	00111001	Y	89	59	01011001	y	121	79	01111001
:	58	3A	00111010	Z	90	5A	01011010	z	122	7A	01111010
;	59	3B	00111011	[	91	5B	01011011	{	123	7B	01111011
<	60	3C	00111100	\	92	5C	01011100	\|	124	7C	01111100
=	61	3D	00111101	]	93	5D	01011101	}	125	7D	01111101
	62	3E	00111110	^	94	5E	01011110	~	126	7E	01111110
?	63	3F	00111111	_	95	5F	01011111	DEL	127	7F	01111111

Understanding ASCII

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard developed in the 1960s that represents text in computers and communication equipment. It uses 7 bits to encode 128 different characters.

ASCII Character Categories

Control Characters (0-31, 127): Non-printable characters used for text formatting and device control
Digits (48-57): Numbers 0 through 9
Uppercase Letters (65-90): A through Z
Lowercase Letters (97-122): a through z
Punctuation & Symbols (32-47, 58-64, 91-96, 123-126): Space, punctuation marks, and special characters

Important Control Characters

Code	Name	Abbreviation	Description
0	Null	NUL	Used as string terminator in C/C++
9	Horizontal Tab	TAB / \t	Tab character for indentation
10	Line Feed	LF / \n	New line (Unix/Linux/macOS)
13	Carriage Return	CR / \r	Return to line start (Windows uses CR+LF)
27	Escape	ESC	Used for escape sequences
32	Space	SP	Space character (first printable)
127	Delete	DEL	Delete character

Programming Tip To convert between uppercase and lowercase in ASCII, add or subtract 32. For example: 'A' (65) + 32 = 'a' (97). This works because uppercase and lowercase letters are exactly 32 positions apart.

ASCII in Programming

Working with ASCII codes is fundamental in programming. Here's how to get ASCII values in popular languages:

 Python
 # Get ASCII code
ord('A') # Returns 65

# Get character from code
chr(65) # Returns 'A'
 

 JavaScript
 // Get ASCII code
'A'.charCodeAt(0) // 65

// Get character
String.fromCharCode(65) // 'A'
 

 C / C++
 // Get ASCII code
int code = (int)'A'; // 65

// Get character
char c = (char)65; // 'A'
 

 Java
 // Get ASCII code
int code = (int)'A'; // 65

// Get character
char c = (char)65; // 'A'
 

Common Use Cases

Input Validation

Check if input contains only letters (65-90, 97-122), digits (48-57), or specific allowed characters using ASCII code ranges.

Encryption

Simple cipher algorithms like Caesar cipher work by shifting ASCII codes. ROT13 shifts each letter by 13 positions.

Sorting

String sorting often uses ASCII values. Note that uppercase letters (65-90) come before lowercase (97-122) in ASCII order.

Case Conversion

Convert case by adding/subtracting 32. Check if uppercase (65-90) then add 32 for lowercase, or vice versa.

Data Encoding

Base64 encoding, URL encoding, and other data formats rely on ASCII character representations.

Network Protocols

HTTP, SMTP, FTP and other text-based protocols use ASCII for headers and commands. HTTP uses CR+LF (13, 10) for line endings.

ASCII vs Unicode

While ASCII was revolutionary, it only supports 128 characters - sufficient for English but not for other languages. Unicode was developed to address this limitation.

Feature	ASCII	Unicode
Bits Used	7 bits (often stored as 8)	Variable (8-32 bits via UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32)
Characters	128	Over 143,000 (and growing)
Languages	English only	All languages, including historical scripts
Symbols	Basic punctuation	Mathematical, musical, emoji, and more
Compatibility	-	First 128 Unicode characters = ASCII

UTF-8 Encoding UTF-8 is the most common Unicode encoding on the web. It's backwards-compatible with ASCII - the first 128 UTF-8 characters are identical to ASCII, using just 1 byte. Non-ASCII characters use 2-4 bytes.

Extended ASCII

Extended ASCII uses the full 8 bits, adding 128 more characters (128-255) for accented letters, line-drawing characters, and additional symbols. However, different systems use different extended ASCII tables:

ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1): Western European languages
Windows-1252: Microsoft Windows Western European
ISO-8859-15 (Latin-9): Adds Euro sign (€) to Latin-1

Extended ASCII Warning Extended ASCII (codes 128-255) is not standardised. The same code may display different characters on different systems. For international text, always use UTF-8 Unicode encoding.

Frequently Asked Questions

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard that represents text in computers and communication equipment. Developed in the 1960s, it uses 7 bits to represent 128 characters including uppercase and lowercase letters, digits 0-9, punctuation marks, and control characters. ASCII forms the basis of most modern character encoding systems.

The uppercase letter 'A' has ASCII code 65 in decimal, 41 in hexadecimal, and 01000001 in binary. Lowercase 'a' has ASCII code 97 in decimal, 61 in hex, and 01100001 in binary. The difference between uppercase and lowercase versions of any letter is always 32 in decimal.

ASCII uses 7 bits to represent only 128 characters and supports only English characters. Unicode is a comprehensive standard that can represent over 143,000 characters from virtually all writing systems, including emoji, using variable-length encoding like UTF-8. The first 128 Unicode characters are identical to ASCII, making Unicode backwards-compatible.

To convert text to binary, find each character's ASCII decimal code, then convert each decimal number to its 8-bit binary equivalent. For example, 'Hi' converts as: H=72=01001000, i=105=01101001. So 'Hi' in binary is '01001000 01101001'. Our converter above does this automatically.

ASCII control characters (codes 0-31 and 127) are non-printable characters used to control text formatting and device communication. Common examples include: NUL (0) - null character, LF (10) - line feed/newline, CR (13) - carriage return, TAB (9) - horizontal tab, and ESC (27) - escape. These characters were originally designed for controlling teleprinters.

ASCII codes are fundamental in programming for string manipulation, character comparison, input validation, and data encoding. Understanding ASCII helps with tasks like checking if a character is uppercase (codes 65-90), lowercase (97-122), or a digit (48-57). It's also used in encryption algorithms, sorting, and network protocols.

Extended ASCII uses 8 bits to represent 256 characters (codes 0-255), adding 128 additional characters beyond standard ASCII. These include accented letters, line-drawing characters, and special symbols. However, different extended ASCII tables exist (like ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252), so the same code may show different characters on different systems. For international compatibility, use UTF-8 instead.

Use our converter above by typing or pasting the character and clicking 'Convert'. In programming, use functions like ord() in Python, charCodeAt() in JavaScript, or (int)char in C/C++ to get a character's ASCII value. You can also refer to the ASCII table in this page for quick lookups.

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Last updated: February 2026 | ASCII standard per ANSI X3.4-1986

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ASCII Converter

ASCII Code Converter

⌨ Common ASCII Codes

Code Ranges

Conversion Examples

Complete ASCII Table

Printable ASCII Characters (32-126)

Understanding ASCII

ASCII Character Categories

Important Control Characters

ASCII in Programming

Common Use Cases

Input Validation

Encryption

Sorting

Case Conversion

Data Encoding

Network Protocols

ASCII vs Unicode

Extended ASCII

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Tools

Reviewed by: UK Calculator, Founder & Developer

People Also Ask

Embed This Calculator on Your Website

ASCII Converter

ASCII Code Converter

⌨ Common ASCII Codes

Code Ranges

Conversion Examples

Complete ASCII Table

Printable ASCII Characters (32-126)

Understanding ASCII

ASCII Character Categories

Important Control Characters

ASCII in Programming

Common Use Cases

Input Validation

Encryption

Sorting

Case Conversion

Data Encoding

Network Protocols

ASCII vs Unicode

Extended ASCII

Frequently Asked Questions

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