What does the Morse code translator do?
The Morse code translator turns text into Morse code and turns Morse code back into text. Pick a direction, type or paste into the box, and the translation appears underneath as you type. Copy it with one click. It covers the 26 letters, the 10 digits and 17 punctuation marks, and it runs in your browser, so your message never leaves the page.
Type SOS and you get ... --- .... Type hello world and you get .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -... A space separates letters. A slash marks the break between words. Paste that same line into Morse → Text and it comes back as HELLO WORLD.
It's a converter, not a radio. It doesn't play sound, flash a light or listen through your microphone. It reads and writes dots and dashes, which is the part most people need: decoding a puzzle, checking a message, or getting a name ready for a bracelet.
How to translate text to Morse code
- Choose Text → Morse.
- Type or paste your message. Upper and lower case give the same result, because Morse has no case.
- Read the code in the dark box below the input. Press Copy to take it with you.
Each letter becomes its code, codes are joined by single spaces, and every space in your text becomes /. A few real results:
| You type | You get |
|---|---|
| SOS | ... --- ... |
| I love you | .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- |
| Morse code | -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . |
| Hi! | .... .. -.-.-- |
| 5201314 | ..... ..--- ----- .---- ...-- .---- ....- |
That last one is a number people use online to mean "I love you forever" in Chinese slang. Digits work the same way as letters: one code per digit, spaces between them.
Characters with no code pass straight through. If your text has an accented letter, an apostrophe or an emoji, the translator leaves it as it is in the output. Café becomes -.-. .- ..-. É. The standard does define a code for É (..-..), but this tool doesn't use it. Swap accented letters for plain ones (é → e) before you encode.
How to decode Morse code to text
Choose Morse → Text and paste the code. Switching direction clears the box, so paste after you switch. The decoder expects one format, the same one the encoder writes:
- Dots and dashes as the plain period
.and hyphen-. - One space between letters.
- Space, slash, space (
/) between words.
Anything the decoder can't match turns into a ? instead of silently disappearing. That makes problems easy to spot. The output comes back in capital letters.
When the decoder shows question marks
A ? in the result almost always means the input format is off, not that the message is broken. Here's what to check first, with what the tool actually returns:
| Your input | Result | What went wrong | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
... --- ... | S?O?S | Two spaces between letters | Use one space |
.-/-... | ? | Slash with no spaces around it | Write / |
...---... | ? | No gaps at all, so it reads as one long symbol | Add a space after each letter |
... | ?S? | A space at the start or end | Trim the ends |
·· — · | ??? | Middle dots or long dashes copied from a web page | Replace them with . and - |
Code copied from a puzzle site or a PDF often carries doubled spaces or tabs. Run it through the Whitespace Remover first. It collapses runs of spaces to one. Then paste the clean line here. Decode one line at a time, since a line break inside the code also shows up as a ?.
If the code you're reading has no gaps at all, no tool can be sure where letters end. ...---... could be SOS, or it could be VTB or several other strings. Spacing is part of the message. Without it, a person decodes by guessing, and so would any translator that claimed otherwise.
The Morse code alphabet
These are the International Morse codes the translator uses. They match the reference grid inside the tool.
| Letter | Morse | Letter | Morse |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | .- | N | -. |
| B | -... | O | --- |
| C | -.-. | P | .--. |
| D | -.. | Q | --.- |
| E | . | R | .-. |
| F | ..-. | S | ... |
| G | --. | T | - |
| H | .... | U | ..- |
| I | .. | V | ...- |
| J | .--- | W | .-- |
| K | -.- | X | -..- |
| L | .-.. | Y | -.-- |
| M | -- | Z | --.. |
Numbers in Morse code: the pyramid
| Digit | Morse | Digit | Morse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .---- | 6 | -.... |
| 2 | ..--- | 7 | --... |
| 3 | ...-- | 8 | ---.. |
| 4 | ....- | 9 | ----. |
| 5 | ..... | 0 | ----- |
Every digit is exactly five symbols, and they stack into a neat pyramid. From 1 to 5, dots fill in from the left until 5 is all dots. From 6 to 0, dashes fill in from the left until 0 is all dashes. Learn the rule and you never need to memorize the ten codes.
Punctuation the translator supports
| Mark | Morse | Mark | Morse |
|---|---|---|---|
| . (period) | .-.-.- | + (plus) | .-.-. |
| , (comma) | --..-- | - (hyphen) | -....- |
| ? (question) | ..--.. | _ (underscore) | ..--.- |
| ! (exclamation) | -.-.-- | " (quote) | .-..-. |
| / (slash) | -..-. | $ (dollar) | ...-..- |
| ( (open paren) | -.--. | @ (at) | .--.-. |
| ) (close paren) | -.--.- | & (ampersand) | .-... |
| : (colon) | ---... | ; (semicolon) | -.-.-. |
| = (equals) | -...- |
One oddity: a slash you type is encoded as -..-., while the slash in the output means "new word." Inside the code they never clash, because the word slash always has a space on each side.
How Morse code timing works
On paper, Morse is dots and dashes. On the air, it's lengths of sound and silence, all measured in one unit:
| Element | Length | Written as |
|---|---|---|
| Dot (dit) | 1 unit on | . |
| Dash (dah) | 3 units on | - |
| Gap inside a letter | 1 unit off | nothing |
| Gap between letters | 3 units off | one space |
| Gap between words | 7 units off | / |
Speed is counted in words per minute, using the word PARIS as the yardstick. PARIS takes exactly 50 units, word gap included. So one unit lasts 1,200 ÷ wpm milliseconds. At 20 wpm a dot is 60 ms and a dash is 180 ms. At 12 wpm a dot is 100 ms. The written slash is just a visible stand-in for the seven-unit silence.
Why E is one dot. Alfred Vail, who worked with Samuel Morse, estimated how often each letter is used by counting the movable type in a newspaper's type cases in Morristown, New Jersey. Common letters got short codes: E is a single dot and T a single dash. It's the same idea that modern compression schemes are built on, worked out more than a century earlier.
SOS, prosigns and where Morse is still used
SOS is ... --- .... It was adopted at the 1906 International Radiotelegraph Convention in Berlin and took effect in 1908. The letters don't stand for "Save Our Souls." They were picked because three dots, three dashes, three dots is impossible to mistake, even through static. Operators send it as one run with no letter gaps, written ...---.... Paste that unspaced form into the decoder and you'll get a ?, because no single character has that code.
Radio operators use a few run-together signals called prosigns. Two of them happen to share a code with punctuation in the table above:
- AR, "end of message," is
.-.-., the same code as +. - BT, "break" or new paragraph, is
-...-, the same code as =.
So if a decoded radio log is full of plus and equals signs, they're probably prosigns, not math.
Where Morse code is still used
- Amateur radio. Many hams still operate in CW, the Morse mode. The US FCC dropped the Morse test from all amateur licenses on February 23, 2007, but the mode never went away.
- Aviation. Radio navigation beacons identify themselves with a short Morse ID, and the letters are printed on aviation charts so pilots can check they're tuned to the right one.
- Puzzles and escape rooms. Blinking lights and tapped patterns are a classic clue. This is where the decoder earns its keep.
- Jewelry and tattoos. A name or date in dots and dashes. Encode it here, then check it by decoding it back before anything gets engraved.
- Learning. Translating words both ways is a fast way to memorize the alphabet. Morse stopped being the international maritime distress standard in 1999, but it's still taught in scouting and survival courses.
Related encoding tools
- Text to Binary turns text into 8-bit binary. Every character gets a fixed-length code, unlike Morse.
- Binary Decoder goes the other way, from bytes back to text.
- Base64 Encoder/Decoder handles the encoding you'll meet in emails and web data.
- Case Converter tidies the all-caps text the decoder returns.
Frequently asked questions
What is M in Morse code?
M is --, two dashes. Its mirror is I, ... T is a single dash and E a single dot.
How do I separate letters and words?
One space between letters and a slash with a space on each side between words: .... .. / - .... . .-. . decodes to HI THERE.
Why does my decoded text have question marks?
The decoder couldn't match that group of dots and dashes. Check for double spaces, a slash without spaces, spaces at the ends, or fancy dot and dash characters copied from a web page.
Can it play Morse code as sound?
No. This tool converts between text and written dots and dashes. It has no audio, light or microphone mode.
Does it handle accented letters like é or ñ?
No. Characters outside A–Z, 0–9 and the 17 punctuation marks in the table pass through unchanged when you encode. Replace them with plain letters first.
Is my message stored anywhere?
No. The translation happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and closing the tab clears it.