Morse Code Translator

How to use it

1. Choose a direction: Text to Morse, or Morse to text.
2. Type or paste your input. For Morse, use dots and dashes, a space between letters and a slash (/) between words.
3. Read the result and the signal count. If a character has no Morse code, the tool lists it under the result.
4. Set the speed (5 to 40 words per minute) and pitch (300 to 1000 Hz), then press Play sound. Stop ends playback early.
5. Press Copy result, or open the Morse code chart to look up a single character.

How Morse code works

Morse code writes each character as a short pattern of two signals: a short one, the dot, and a long one, the dash. E is a single dot. T is a single dash. Longer or rarer letters get longer patterns, so Q is --.- and J is .---.

Everything else is timing. A dot is one unit. A dash is three units. Silence separates the parts, and the length of the silence tells the listener what ended.

Morse code timing

These proportions come from the international standard, ITU-R M.1677-1. The tool uses them for both the written output and the sound.

Morse code speed: what WPM means

Morse speed is given in words per minute (WPM). A "word" is defined as the standard word PARIS, which takes 50 units to send, including the gap after it. One unit lasts 1.2 divided by the WPM, in seconds.

The speed slider runs from 5 to 40 WPM. The default is 15.

Worked example: how long does "HELP" take?

Spell out each letter:

• H is ....: four dots (4 units) and three gaps (3 units), for 7 units.
• E is .: 1 unit.
• L is .-..: three dots (3), one dash (3) and three gaps (3), for 9 units.
• P is .--.: two dots (2), two dashes (6) and three gaps (3), for 11 units.

Add the three gaps between letters, 3 units each, which is 9. The total is 7 + 1 + 9 + 11 + 9 = 37 units. At 15 WPM one unit is 0.08 seconds, so "HELP" takes 37 x 0.08 = 2.96 seconds. At 20 WPM it takes 2.22 seconds.

The written result is .... . .-.. .--..

Text to Morse code

In the Text to Morse mode, type letters, numbers or punctuation. The tool converts to uppercase, looks up each character, puts a single space between letters and " / " between words. A counter shows the number of dots and dashes in the result.

Characters with no Morse code, such as accented letters or emoji, are skipped in the output and listed in a message below it, so you know what was dropped.

Morse code alphabet and numbers

The full chart, with punctuation, is under "Morse code chart" in the tool.

Morse code decoder: Morse to text

Switch to Morse to text and paste dots and dashes. Use one space between letters. Use a slash between words, or three or more spaces. The tool also accepts a middle dot or bullet for a dot, and a minus sign or underscore for a dash, so text copied from other sites usually works.

Example: .... .. / - .... . .-. . decodes to HI THERE. The first group is H (....) and I (..). After the slash come T (-), H (....), E (.), R (.-.) and E (.).

A pattern that is not in the table comes out as a question mark and is listed under the result. That is the usual sign of a missing space or a mistyped dash.

Morse code audio: how the tool plays it

Press Play sound and the page generates a sine-wave tone with the Web Audio API. Each dot and dash is turned on and off with a brief fade, about 5 milliseconds, so there are no clicks. The pitch slider sets the tone from 300 to 1000 Hz, with 600 Hz as the default.

Nothing is uploaded, and nothing is saved. Press Stop to cut playback. If you hear nothing, check that the page is not muted, since browsers only allow audio after a click.

Limits and common mistakes

• SOS is not three letters. In real use, SOS is sent as one unbroken signal, ...---..., with no letter gaps. The tool writes it as S, O, S with normal spacing, because it translates letters.
• Missing word breaks. If you type Morse without slashes, the words run together.
• Different variants. American Morse, the original 1844 code, is a different code from International Morse. This tool uses International Morse.
• Case and accents. Morse has no lowercase, and accented letters are not in the table.
• Not secret. Morse is an encoding. Anyone with a chart can read it.

A short history of Morse code

Samuel Morse developed an early on-off telegraph code around 1837. Alfred Vail expanded it in 1840 to include letters and special characters, and the result, first used in 1844, became American Morse code.

In 1848 Friedrich Gerke proposed a revised code, the Hamburg alphabet. Germany and Austria adopted it in 1851. International Morse code was standardized in Paris on 17 May 1865. The current international standard is ITU-R M.1677-1, approved in October 2009.

Morse was the international maritime distress standard until 1999, when the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System took over. The final U.S. commercial Morse transmission was on 12 July 1999, and it ended with Morse's original 1844 message, "What hath God wrought."

Word gaps were once five units. They are seven today.

Related tools

Morse is one way to turn text into signals. The binary code translator does the same with ones and zeros, and Base64 turns bytes into plain letters. For classic letter ciphers, see Atbash and ROT13.

Sources

• ITU-R M.1677-1, International Morse code (ITU): current standard, approved October 2009.
• Morse code (Wikipedia): history, timing rules, PARIS standard, retirement from maritime use.

Checked October 2026.