Morse Code Converter

Related guide

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What the converter handles

Morse code represents each character as a short sequence of dots and dashes. This converter works in both directions: type text and read the code, or paste code and read the text. In either direction a single space separates the signals of one character and a slash separates words, which is the conventional written form of the code.

The character set covers A to Z and the digits 0 to 9 — thirty-six characters in all. That is the backbone of the international standard and enough for callsigns, plain prose and the classic distress call. Punctuation is not included, so a comma or a full stop in the input has no representation and comes out as a question mark instead. Strip punctuation first if you want a clean result.

Reading the output

In the text-to-code direction the result is grouped by word, so you can count characters and see where words begin. Letter spacing is one space and word spacing is a slash with a space on either side, which keeps the whole thing on one line while staying unambiguous.

One thing to watch is whitespace at the edges of your input. The converter splits on runs of whitespace, so a leading or trailing space can leave a stray slash at the start or end of the result. Trim the input before converting and the output is clean.

Going the other way, the input has to be properly spaced. Dots and dashes run together without separators cannot be split back into characters, so a run like three dots followed by three dashes and three dots reads as one unknown token rather than as the distinct letters it was meant to be. Keep the spacing intact when you copy code in from elsewhere.

Playing it out loud

The play button turns the code into audio, which is how it is actually received: a 700 Hz tone that you hear rather than read. The timing follows the standard proportions — a dash is three times the length of a dot, the gap inside a character is one dot long, the gap between characters is three, and between words seven. Get those ratios wrong and it stops sounding like Morse, which is why the playback is worth trusting as a reference even if you never use it for practice.

In the text-to-code direction the button plays the result; in the code-to-text direction it plays what you typed. Either way the sound is generated in the browser, so there is nothing to download and it needs only your system volume.

FAQ

Which characters are supported?
A to Z in either case and the digits 0 to 9 — thirty-six characters. Anything else, including punctuation and accented letters, has no Morse representation here and converts to a question mark.

Why does my result contain question marks?
A question mark stands for a character the converter does not know. Punctuation such as commas, full stops and apostrophes is the usual cause; remove it before converting. In the other direction it means a token was not a valid Morse sequence.

How are words separated?
A slash with spaces around it. Within a word, a single space separates one character from the next. That is the standard written convention and it is what the decoder expects on the way back.

Why is there a stray slash at the start of my output?
The input had leading or trailing whitespace, which produces an empty word and therefore an extra separator. Trim the text first and the extra slash disappears.

Is the audio timing accurate?
It uses the standard ratios: a dash lasts three times as long as a dot, with character and word gaps of three and seven dot-lengths. A dot is eighty milliseconds, so a dash is about a quarter of a second — the usual speed for practice at around fifteen words a minute.

Why does the result box show a question mark when the input is empty?
An empty input is split into a single empty token, which is not a valid sequence, so it is reported as unrecognised. Clear the box and it goes away.