ASCII to binary

Direction

Base

Text

Binary 01001000 01101001

Each character padded to eight bits

Without spaces 0100100001101001

Characters 2

Note

Padded to eight bits so it decodes back

Each character becomes its code in binary, padded to eight bits. "Hi" becomes 01001000 01101001. Padding to a fixed width is what makes the result decodable again.

How to encode text as binary

1 Type or paste the text.

2 Read the binary, spaced by character.

3 Use the joined form only if the reader knows the width.

4 Non-ASCII characters produce values beyond eight bits.

Fixed-width padding is the whole trick. Without it, the letter A (1000001, seven bits) and a control character could run together ambiguously. Padding every character to eight bits means a decoder can simply take them eight at a time. It is the same principle as fixed-width fields in a data format, and the reason ASCII was defined as a seven-bit code stored in an eight-bit byte.

Questions

What is "A" in binary? −

01000001 — code 65 padded to eight bits.

Why pad to eight bits? +

What about spaces in my text? +

Can I encode emoji? +

Is this ASCII or Unicode? +

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