ASCII to Text Converter
Turn a list of character codes into readable text. Paste decimal ASCII values, Unicode code points or HTML numeric entities, and see the characters they stand for.
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Free to use
How to use ASCII to Text
- Paste the character codes into the left box.
- Numbers can be separated by spaces, commas or new lines; HTML entities are recognised too.
- The decoded text appears on the right.
- Copy or download the text.
ASCII to Text features
Decimal codes
Reads values such as 72 101 108 108 111 as “Hello”.
HTML entities
Decodes decimal (H) and hexadecimal (H) character references.
Full Unicode range
Code points up to 1,114,111, covering all scripts and emoji.
Flexible separators
Spaces, commas, semicolons or line breaks.
Precise errors
Reports which item is not a valid number or is out of range.
Private
Decoded in your browser.
When to use ASCII to Text
- Decoding messages written as ASCII numbers in puzzles.
- Reading character arrays from source code or logs.
- Revealing text hidden behind HTML numeric entities.
- Checking the output of programming exercises on character codes.
- Converting keycode lists back to characters.
ASCII to Text FAQ
What numbers can I enter?
Decimal character codes. Values 0–127 are ASCII; larger values are treated as Unicode code points, up to 1,114,111.
Can I paste HTML entities?
Yes. Decimal references like é and hexadecimal ones like é are decoded.
Why do I see odd symbols or nothing for some numbers?
Codes below 32 are control characters such as tab and line break, which are not visible. Very large or unassigned code points may display as an empty box.
My numbers are bytes, not code points. What should I use?
For UTF-8 byte values written in hexadecimal or binary, use Hex to Text or Binary to Text, which combine multi-byte sequences into characters.
How do I get codes from text?
Use the Text to ASCII converter.
What are the codes for a new line and a tab?
A line feed is 10 and a carriage return is 13; Windows text files use both together as 13 10, while Linux and macOS use 10 alone. A horizontal tab is 9 and a space is 32. These control characters are decoded like any other, so 72 105 10 66 121 101 produces two lines.
What happens with numbers above 127?
Standard ASCII ends at 127. Codes from 128 to 255 belong to extended character sets, which differ between systems, so the same number can mean different characters. This tool reads larger numbers as Unicode code points, which matches Latin-1 for the range up to 255 and covers every modern script and symbol beyond it. Numbers that are not valid code points are reported.
From numbers back to characters
Every character a computer displays is identified by a number. In programming languages those numbers are visible through functions such as chr and ord in Python or fromCharCode in JavaScript, and they often appear in logs, data dumps and teaching material. Converting the numbers back reveals the text.
For English text the numbers fall between 32 and 126. A quick sanity check: 65–90 are capital letters, 97–122 lower-case letters, 48–57 digits and 32 is a space. A sequence of numbers mostly in those ranges is almost certainly ASCII text.
HTML uses the same numbers in character references. H and H both mean the letter H, the first in decimal and the second in hexadecimal. Pages sometimes encode whole email addresses this way; decoding them shows the plain address.
It is important to know whether numbers are code points or bytes. The code point of é is 233, but in a UTF-8 file it is stored as the two bytes 195 and 169. This tool interprets numbers as code points; the hex and binary converters interpret their input as bytes.
When a decoded message looks wrong, check the separators and the number base first. Codes copied from a table are often separated by commas or line breaks, and a list that is really hexadecimal or octal will produce nonsense when read as decimal.