Morse Code Translator
Translate text to and from International Morse Code, with audible playback at an adjustable speed.
Morse Code Encoder / Decoder
Edit either side — updates live. Words separated by / in Morse.
The timing is the code
Morse is often written as dots and dashes, but the actual signal is defined entirely by durations, and the ratios between them are fixed.
Everything is measured in units of one dit — the length of a dot. A dash is three dits. The gap between symbols within a letter is one dit. The gap between letters is three dits. The gap between words is seven dits.
Those proportions are what make Morse decodable. Get them wrong and the message becomes ambiguous: run the letter gaps too short and . . . (three E's) becomes indistinguishable from ... (S).
Speed is quoted in words per minute, calibrated against the word PARIS, which is exactly 50 dit-units including its trailing word gap. So 20 WPM means 1000 dit-units per minute, or one dit every 60 milliseconds. Trained operators work comfortably at 20–30 WPM; the rate slows for poor conditions rather than being reduced by lengthening the dits disproportionately.
International Morse Code
| Letter | Code | Letter | Code | Digit | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | ·− | N | −· | 1 | ·−−−− |
| B | −··· | O | −−− | 2 | ··−−− |
| C | −·−· | P | ·−−· | 3 | ···−− |
| D | −·· | Q | −−·− | 4 | ····− |
| E | · | R | ·−· | 5 | ····· |
| F | ··−· | S | ··· | 6 | −···· |
| G | −−· | T | − | 7 | −−··· |
| H | ···· | U | ··− | 8 | −−−·· |
| I | ·· | V | ···− | 9 | −−−−· |
| J | ·−−− | W | ·−− | 0 | −−−−− |
| K | −·− | X | −··− | . | ·−·−·− |
| L | ·−·· | Y | −·−− | , | −−··−− |
| M | −− | Z | −−·· | ? | ··−−·· |
The lengths are not arbitrary: Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail assigned the shortest codes to the most frequent English letters, which is why E is a single dot and T a single dash. It is a hand-built frequency encoding, predating Huffman coding by a century.
Things worth knowing
- SOS is one symbol, not three letters —It is sent as a continuous ···−−−··· with no letter gaps — a prosign, written S̄OS̄. It was chosen because the pattern is unmistakable, not because the letters abbreviate anything. "Save Our Souls" is a later backronym.
- There is no case —Morse has no distinction between upper and lower case. Decoded output is conventionally shown in capitals.
- Accented letters vary by country —International Morse covers A–Z, 0–9 and a small set of punctuation. Accented characters have national extensions that are not universally understood.
- It is still in active use —Amateur radio uses it constantly, aviation and marine navigation beacons identify themselves in Morse, and it remains usable at signal levels far below what voice or digital modes need — a human ear can pull a Morse tone out of noise that would defeat almost anything else.
- Prosigns are procedural, not textual —AR ends a message, SK ends a contact, BT separates paragraphs. They are sent as run-together letters and do not correspond to printed characters.
About
The Morse Code Encoder / Decoder converts plain text to international Morse code and decodes Morse code back to readable text instantly as you type. It covers all A–Z letters, digits 0–9, and common punctuation marks. The built-in audio playback uses the Web Audio API to play the encoded message as authentic beeps — no external library, no audio file downloads, 100% private. Speed is adjustable from 10 to 25 WPM (words per minute) using the PARIS standard. The interactive cheatsheet below the editor lets you click any character to insert it directly into the input, making it a great tool for learning Morse code.
How to use
- 1 Type text in the left panel to see the Morse code equivalent appear on the right in real time.
- 2 To decode, enter Morse code (dots and dashes) in the right panel — letters separated by spaces, words by /.
- 3 Click "Play audio" to hear the Morse code as beeps. Adjust speed with the WPM selector (10–25 WPM).
- 4 Click any character in the Morse Code Cheatsheet to append it to the text input.
- 5 Use the copy button on either panel to copy the result to your clipboard.
- What is Morse code and who uses it today?
- Morse code is a character encoding system that uses sequences of dots (short signals) and dashes (long signals) to represent letters, digits, and punctuation. While no longer used for commercial long-distance communication, it remains active in amateur (ham) radio, aviation navigational beacons (VOR/NDB identifiers), and accessibility technology — people with motor impairments can use Morse code as an input method via switch devices.
- How do I separate words when entering Morse code to decode?
- Separate individual letters with a single space and separate words with a forward slash (/). For example, "... --- ..." represents SOS, and "... --- ... / --- -.-" represents "SOS OK". This tool auto-encodes your text in the correct format when you type normally.
- How does the audio playback work?
- The audio uses the browser's Web Audio API to synthesise a 650 Hz sine-wave tone entirely in your browser — no audio files are downloaded and no data is sent to any server. Speed is measured in WPM using the PARIS standard: at 15 WPM, one dit (dot) lasts 80 ms. A dash (dah) is 3× a dit, the inter-letter gap is 3× a dit, and the inter-word gap is 7× a dit.
- What WPM speed should I choose?
- 10–12 WPM is a comfortable beginner speed. 15–18 WPM is used in amateur radio novice exams. 20+ WPM is considered proficient. Start slow to learn the rhythm of each character, then increase the speed as you become familiar. The PARIS standard defines one word as 50 dit-units, so the timing scales precisely.
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