Morse Code Translator
A Morse translator swaps letters for dots and dashes. Type SOS on the Text to Morse tab and it returns ... --- ..., with a space between letters and a slash between words, so HELLO WORLD becomes .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. and the play button sounds it as 700 Hz tones.
📖 Morse Code Reference ▼
About Morse Code Translator
Two tabs, one map. Text to Morse turns what you type into dots and dashes as you type; Morse to Text does the reverse, reading a space as the gap between letters and a slash as the gap between words. The table behind both covers 49 characters: the 26 letters, the ten digits and thirteen marks — ? ! . , / @ & : ; = + and the two brackets. Anything the table does not know, an accented letter for instance, is passed through unchanged rather than dropped, so you can see what did not translate.
The play button turns the output into sound with the Web Audio API: a 700 Hz tone, a dot of 80 milliseconds at normal speed and a dash three times as long, with one dot of silence between elements, three between letters and seven between words. Those are the conventional Morse proportions, and the speed slider scales all of them together from 0.5x to 3x in quarter steps, so the rhythm stays correct at every setting. Pressing the button again stops playback.
A collapsible reference lists the 36 letters and digits with their codes. In Text to Morse mode the tiles are clickable: tapping one appends that character to the input, which is a practical way to build a message when you are learning rather than typing blind. Copy puts the current output on your clipboard.
Two limits are worth stating. The tool is a translator, not a decoder of audio or images: you have to type the dots and dashes, it cannot listen to a recording or read a photograph. And the reference covers the Latin alphabet only, so scripts with their own Morse conventions are out of scope. Everything runs in your browser.
Use Cases
How to use
Choose a direction: Text to Morse to encode, or Morse to Text to decode.
Type or paste into the input box. The output updates as you type, with no button to press.
When decoding, separate letters with a single space and words with a slash, which is the format the encoder produces.
Press the play button to hear the message as 700 Hz tones, and press it again to stop.
Drag the speed slider between 0.5x and 3x to slow the audio down for learning or speed it up for practice.
Open the reference to see all 36 letters and digits with their codes, and press copy to take the output with you.
Pro Tips
- Spacing carries meaning. One space separates letters and a slash separates words, so .... .. is HI while ....../.. is not what you meant. Keep the slashes when you copy a message elsewhere.
- Characters the table does not know pass straight through. If an accented letter appears untranslated in the output, that is the tool telling you it has no code for it, not a failure to run.
- In Text to Morse mode the reference tiles are buttons: tapping A, B or 7 appends it to your input. It is the quickest way to compose a message while you are still learning the codes.
- The speed slider scales dots, dashes and all three gaps together, so the proportions stay right. Slow it to 0.5x for teaching and the rhythm is still real Morse, just stretched.
- Play is a toggle. Pressing it while a message is sounding stops it immediately rather than queuing a second playback, which matters when you have pasted a long string.
Troubleshooting
My decoded text came out as one long word.
Word breaks are marked with a slash, not with extra spaces. A single space only separates letters, so ... --- ... decodes to SOS while ... / --- / ... decodes to S O S. Add slashes where the words belong and the spacing appears.
Some characters were not translated.
The table covers 49 characters: A to Z, 0 to 9 and thirteen punctuation marks. Anything else — accented letters, other scripts, unusual symbols — is passed through unchanged so that you can see it. Replace those characters with unaccented equivalents before encoding.
Pressing play produces no sound.
The audio is generated by the Web Audio API, which browsers only start after you have interacted with the page; pressing play counts, so check the tab is not muted and the device volume is up. The button also does nothing when the output is empty, so type something first.
Frequently Asked Questions
It looks each character up in a table and prints the matching dots and dashes, then reverses the table to decode. This one knows 49 characters: the 26 letters, the ten digits and thirteen punctuation marks. Type SOS and it returns ... --- ..., with letters separated by a space and words by a slash.
Press the Morse to Text tab and paste the dots and dashes. Use a single space between letters and a slash between words, which is the format the encoder produces. .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. comes back as HELLO WORLD.
Three dots, three dashes, three dots: ... --- ... It is written as one run without letter gaps because it was adopted as a distress signal for its rhythm rather than as the letters S, O and S. Type it here and press play to hear why it is recognisable.
By silence of different lengths. Inside a letter the elements are one dot apart, letters are three dots apart and words seven. In writing, this tool uses a single space between letters and a slash between words, and the audio reproduces the same one, three and seven proportions.
Yes. The play button generates 700 Hz tones in your browser: an 80 millisecond dot at normal speed, a dash three times as long and the standard gaps in between. The slider runs from 0.5x to 3x and scales everything together, so the rhythm stays correct however fast you set it.
Morse speed is usually converted with 1200 divided by the dot length in milliseconds. This tool's 80 millisecond dot at 1x therefore corresponds to roughly 15 words per minute, with the 0.5x setting near 7.5 and the 3x setting near 45.
Forty-nine: A to Z, 0 to 9 and the marks ? ! . , / @ & : ; = + and the two brackets. Anything else passes through untouched, so accented letters and other scripts will appear unchanged in the output rather than silently disappearing.
No. It translates text you type, in either direction, and can play a message as sound, but it cannot listen to a recording or read dots and dashes out of an image. Transcribe what you can hear or see into dots, dashes, spaces and slashes first, then paste that in.
Yes, behind the reference toggle: all 26 letters and 10 digits with their codes. In Text to Morse mode the tiles are clickable, so tapping one appends that character to your input, which is a quick way to build a message while you are still learning the alphabet.
Listen rather than look. Type a short word, slow the slider to 0.5x, and try to hear the dot-dash pattern of each letter before checking it against the reference. The rhythm is what you are learning: at any speed a dash lasts exactly three dots, and that ratio is what makes letters recognisable.