What Is Text Encoding, and Why Convert It?
Computers ultimately store everything as binary (0s and 1s), but humans need readable formats layered on top — like Base64 for embedding binary data in text-based formats (emails, JSON, URLs), or URL encoding for safely including special characters in a web address. This tool moves between these formats and plain text instantly.
Binary to Text Conversion
Each character has a numeric code (its ASCII/Unicode value), which can be represented in binary. This tool auto-detects direction: paste plain text and it converts to space-separated 8-bit binary; paste binary and it converts back to text.
Base64 Encoding Explained
Base64 represents binary data using only 64 printable characters (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, +, /), which makes it safe to embed in places that only support text — email attachments, data URLs, and API tokens are common examples. It increases the data size by roughly a third but guarantees safe transport through text-only systems.
URL Encoding Explained
URLs can only safely contain a limited set of characters. URL encoding (percent-encoding) converts unsafe or reserved characters — spaces, ampersands, non-Latin scripts — into a %XX format so they can be safely included in a web address or query string.