Morse Code Translator
Translate text to Morse code and Morse code to text, then play it as sound or download a WAV file.
Type in either panel. The other one updates as you go.
Audio
No sound on iPhone? Turn off silent mode.
How to use the Morse code translator
The two panels are linked. What you type in one is written in the other form straight away. You do not pick a direction first, and there is no button to press before a result appears.
- Click the Text box and type a message, or paste one. Lowercase letters are read as capitals. A line break in your text stays a line break in the Morse code.
- Read the Morse code box. Inside a word, each letter is separated by a single space. A space in your sentence becomes / between the words.
- To go the other way, click the Morse code box. Use a dot or a dash for each mark, a space between letters, and / or | between words. Three spaces in a row also start a new word.
- Use Copy text or Copy Morse code to put that panel on the clipboard. Clear empties both panels. SOS and Hello world drop a short example into the Text box so you can see the pattern.
- Copy share link copies this page address with your text after #text=. Opening that link fills the Text box again. The part after the hash is not a separate address, so it is not another page for search engines to collect.
If a character has no Morse pattern, it is left out and named on the status line under the buttons. If a group of dots and dashes is not in the chart, that group becomes a question mark and the status line says how many groups were unrecognized.
Play and download Morse code audio
The Audio row plays the Morse code panel. Play starts the sound, and the same button becomes Stop. Stop cuts the tone off at once. When the message ends, the button returns to Play and the status line says Finished.
Speed is words per minute. The standard word is PARIS, which is 50 timing units, including the space that follows it. At 20 words per minute a dot lasts 60 milliseconds. The range is 5 to 40.
Farnsworth changes only the gaps between letters and between words. The dots and dashes stay at the Speed setting. When the Farnsworth slider matches Speed, the readout says Off and the gaps stay standard. A lower Farnsworth value stretches those gaps so a learner can hear each letter.
Tone sets the pitch from 400 to 900 hertz. Volume sets how loud the tone is. Download WAV saves the same timing as a file named morse-code.wav. Messages longer than five minutes are not saved, and the status line shows the length instead.
Morse code chart
This is the character set the translator uses. Letters and digits follow Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1, and so do the punctuation marks named in that recommendation. The exclamation mark, semicolon, underscore, and dollar sign are not given codes there. They are included because most written Morse charts use these patterns: exclamation mark -.-.--, semicolon -.-.-., underscore ..--.-, and dollar sign ...-..-. The ampersand uses .-..., which the recommendation lists as the Wait signal rather than as a punctuation mark.
| Character | Morse code |
|---|---|
| A | .- |
| B | -... |
| C | -.-. |
| D | -.. |
| E | . |
| F | ..-. |
| G | --. |
| H | .... |
| I | .. |
| J | .--- |
| K | -.- |
| L | .-.. |
| M | -- |
| N | -. |
| O | --- |
| P | .--. |
| Q | --.- |
| R | .-. |
| S | ... |
| T | - |
| U | ..- |
| V | ...- |
| W | .-- |
| X | -..- |
| Y | -.-- |
| Z | --.. |
| Character | Morse code |
|---|---|
| 1 | .---- |
| 2 | ..--- |
| 3 | ...-- |
| 4 | ....- |
| 5 | ..... |
| 6 | -.... |
| 7 | --... |
| 8 | ---.. |
| 9 | ----. |
| 0 | ----- |
| Character | Morse code |
|---|---|
| . | .-.-.- |
| , | --..-- |
| ? | ..--.. |
| ' | .----. |
| ! | -.-.-- |
| / | -..-. |
| ( | -.--. |
| ) | -.--.- |
| & | .-... |
| : | ---... |
| ; | -.-.-. |
| = | -...- |
| + | .-.-. |
| - | -....- |
| _ | ..--.- |
| " | .-..-. |
| $ | ...-..- |
| @ | .--.-. |
A longer reference for the same alphabet is on the Morse code alphabet page, including the timing rules and the marks that are not in the ITU recommendation. The codes in the table above are the ones this translator encodes and decodes.
How Morse code works
Every character is a short pattern of two kinds of mark. The short mark is a dot. The long mark is a dash. In the recommendation, a dash is three times as long as a dot. The gap inside a character, between one mark and the next, is as long as one dot. The gap between two characters is as long as three dots. The gap between two words is as long as seven dots.
Those lengths are about timing, not about how many spaces you type. A page of text cannot hold a silent pause, so this translator writes the same structure with characters you can copy. One space means “the next pattern is a new letter.” The slash between spaces means “the next pattern starts a new word.” A line break in the text stays a line break in the Morse code, so a list or a short note keeps its shape.
Take the letter A. Its pattern is dot, then dash, written .-. The letter B is a dash followed by three dots, written -.... Put them in one word, AB, and the code is .- -.... The space in the middle is the letter gap. It is not part of either pattern. If you remove that space, the marks run together and become a different character, or no character at all.
Words work the same way, one step larger. SOS is three letters and no word gap, so it is written ... --- .... HELLO WORLD is two words. The code for HELLO, then / , then the code for WORLD. The slash is only a written stand-in for the longer gap. It is not a Morse character unless you typed a slash in the text. A typed slash is its own pattern, -..-., and it sits inside the word like any other mark.
Digits are five marks long. Zero is five dashes. One is a dot followed by four dashes. Five is five dots. Six begins the return toward zero with a dash and then four dots. Because every digit has the same length, a number is easy to separate from a word of mixed letters once you know to count five marks.
Punctuation is less regular. A full stop is .-.-.-. A comma is --..--. A question mark is ..--... These patterns are longer than most letters, which is why a missing space changes the reading so quickly. The translator does not guess where a space should have been. It reads the groups you actually typed.
The same rule explains unknown groups. Eight dots in a row is the traditional sign that the sender made an error, but it is not one of the characters in the chart. This page shows it as a question mark and counts it, instead of inventing a letter. If you meant H and then E, type .... . with the space.
You can also type a few lookalike marks in the Morse panel. A middle dot or a bullet is read as a dot. An en dash, an em dash, or a minus sign is read as a dash. That only changes the Morse panel. In the Text panel, a dash character is the hyphen, whose own code is -....-.
Common Morse code phrases
These are ordinary words, encoded with the same rules as the tool. SOS has no slash because it is a single group of three letters. The others are split only where the English has a space.
- SOS ... --- ...
- HELLO .... . .-.. .-.. ---
- HELP .... . .-.. .--.
- YES -.-- . ...
- NO -. ---
- THANK YOU - .... .- -. -.- / -.-- --- ..-
- GOOD MORNING --. --- --- -.. / -- --- .-. -. .. -. --.
SOS in Morse code is the distress signal agreed for Morse. It is not three separate words, and it is not written with slashes between S, O, and S. HELLO, HELP, YES, and NO are short enough to compare letter by letter with the chart. THANK YOU and GOOD MORNING show the word slash in a normal sentence.
Questions about this translator
What is Morse code?
Morse code is a way to write letters, numbers, and punctuation as dots and dashes. A dash lasts three times as long as a dot.
How do I convert text to Morse code here?
Type or paste into the Text panel. The Morse code panel fills in as you type. Letters in a word are separated by one space, and words are separated by a slash.
How do I convert Morse code back to text?
Type dots and dashes into the Morse code panel. Use a space between letters. Use a slash, a vertical bar, or at least three spaces between words.
Which characters can this translator encode?
It encodes A to Z, digits 0 to 9, and . , ? ' ! / ( ) & : ; = + - _ " $ @. Lowercase letters are treated as uppercase.
What happens to a character it does not know?
That character is left out of the Morse code, and the status line lists what was skipped. An unknown dot-and-dash pattern becomes a question mark.
How is SOS written in Morse code?
SOS is ... --- ... with a single space between the letters and no slash, because it is one word.
Does a share link put my text in the search index?
No. Copy share link puts the text in the page hash, after #text=. Browsers do not send the hash to the server, and this site does not turn it into a separate page.
Is this Morse code translator free?
Yes. It runs in your browser, it does not ask you to sign in, and the text you type is not uploaded.
How do I play Morse code as sound?
Type or paste a message so the Morse code panel has dots and dashes, then press Play. Stop ends the sound immediately. The status line says Playing, Stopped, or Finished.
What does WPM mean in Morse code?
WPM means words per minute. Speed is defined by the word PARIS, which takes 50 units including the word space after it. At 20 WPM one unit is 60 milliseconds, so PARIS takes three seconds.
What is Farnsworth spacing?
Farnsworth spacing keeps dots and dashes at the Speed you chose and lengthens the gaps between letters and between words. Set Farnsworth below Speed to turn it on. When it matches Speed, the control reads Off and the gaps stay standard.
Can I download Morse code as audio?
Yes. Download WAV builds a mono 16-bit WAV file from the Morse code panel and saves it as morse-code.wav. The download uses the Speed, Farnsworth, Tone, and Volume settings on the page. A message longer than five minutes is not downloaded; the status line shows how long it would be.