Number to Words
A number-to-words converter spells a figure out in English words: type 1234 and it writes one thousand two hundred and thirty-four. Currency mode turns $1,250.75 into one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-five cents; Ordinal mode turns 21 into twenty-first. Decimals are read digit by digit, so 3.14159 becomes three point one four one five nine.
Examples
About Number to Words
Number to Words spells a figure out the way you would say it, in English. Type digits into the box and the line under In words rewrites itself on every keystroke; there is no convert button. The converter splits the integer part into groups of three digits and names each group on the short scale: thousand, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion. Because it works on the digits with big-integer arithmetic rather than floating point, even a 21-digit input is spelled exactly.
Three modes sit above the input. Cardinal writes the plain count: 1234 becomes one thousand two hundred and thirty-four, 0 becomes zero, and -273 becomes negative two hundred and seventy-three. Ordinal writes a position and applies the irregular English forms, so 12 is twelfth, 40 is fortieth and 105 is one hundred and fifth. Currency reads the amount as money in one of four ISO 4217 currencies, USD, EUR, GBP or JPY, with the right subunit: 1234.56 in pounds is one thousand two hundred and thirty-four pounds and fifty-six pence, and 2.01 is two pounds and one penny.
The wording follows British usage and keeps and after the hundreds (one hundred and one); American style usually drops it. Only the short scale is available, so there is no lakh or crore grouping and no rupee wording. Ordinal mode ignores anything after the decimal point, Currency mode reads the first two decimals and truncates the rest, and the integer part is capped at 21 digits, above which the box shows Numbers above 999 quintillion are not supported.
Every conversion runs in your browser, so the number you type is never sent to a server. The Copy button puts the plain lowercase text on your clipboard, ready to paste into a check line, a contract clause or a spreadsheet cell, and the Examples row loads eight sample figures showing how zero, a negative number or a twelve-digit number are worded.
Use Cases
How to use
Pick a mode in the row at the top of the card: Cardinal for a plain count, Ordinal for a position such as twenty-first, Currency for an amount of money.
In Currency mode, choose the currency in the dropdown that appears: $ USD - Dollar, € EUR - Euro, £ GBP - Pound or ¥ JPY - Yen.
Type the figure into the large centred box, the one whose placeholder shows 123456.78. Commas and currency symbols are stripped for you, and the small grey line underneath shows the number formatted.
Read the result in the In words panel below: it updates on every keystroke, so there is nothing to submit.
Press Copy to put the text on the clipboard. The button turns green and reads Copied! for two seconds.
Or tap one of the buttons under Examples - 42, 1234, 1000000, 999999999, -273, 3.14159, 123456789012, 0 - to load a sample figure and see how it is worded.
Pro Tips
- The wording keeps the British and: 101 comes out as one hundred and one. If your house style is American, delete that and to get one hundred one, but leave the one that separates dollars from cents.
- Paste straight from a spreadsheet. Anything that is not a digit, a minus sign or a decimal point is stripped, so $1,250.75 and 1,234 are read exactly as 1250.75 and 1234.
- In Currency mode a round amount prints without its cents: 12.00 gives twelve dollars, not twelve dollars and zero cents. Add and 00/100 yourself if the form you are filling in expects it.
- Ordinal mode looks only at the integer part: 3.7 gives third, not three point seventh. Switch back to Cardinal whenever the fraction matters.
- The Examples row is the quickest way to see the edge cases: 0 gives zero, -273 gives negative two hundred and seventy-three, and 3.14159 gives three point one four one five nine.
Troubleshooting
The In words panel still shows Enter a number after I have typed something.
The box needs at least one digit before the decimal point: .5 on its own produces nothing, so type 0.5 instead. Letters are stripped before the number is read, so an entry such as abc also leaves the panel empty.
A red message says Numbers above 999 quintillion are not supported.
The integer part is capped at 21 digits, that is 999,999,999,999,999,999,999. Shorten the figure, or split it and convert the halves separately; the digits after the decimal point do not count towards the limit.
The small grey line under the input shows a different number from the one I typed.
That preview is formatted with an ordinary JavaScript number, which is exact only to about 15 digits, so 999999999999999999999 previews as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The words underneath are computed with exact big-integer arithmetic and stay correct.
Currency mode loses a cent: 1234.567 comes out as fifty-six cents.
Only the first two decimal digits become the subunit, and they are cut rather than rounded. Round the amount to two decimals before you type it, for example 1234.57, and the words will match your ledger.
The text I copied is all lowercase, but the page shows it with capital letters.
The blue panel is styled with a CSS capitalize rule, so it displays One Thousand Two Hundred And Thirty-Four. The clipboard receives the real output, one thousand two hundred and thirty-four; capitalise it in your document to suit the form you are filling in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Type the figure into the box and the words appear as you type; there is no convert button. 1234 returns one thousand two hundred and thirty-four. Choose Cardinal for a plain count, Ordinal for a position (21 becomes twenty-first) or Currency for money (1234.56 becomes one thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty-six cents). Press Copy to take the text with you.
Word form, also called number-name form, is the number written the way you say it: 405 in word form is four hundred and five. Standard form is 405 and expanded form is 400 + 5. This converter produces word form, splitting the digits into groups of three and naming each group thousand, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion or quintillion.
11 is eleven and 12 is twelve. Both are irregular: English only becomes predictable at 13, thirteen, and again at 20, where the tens word takes a hyphen and the unit, as in twenty-one and thirty-four. In Ordinal mode 11 gives eleventh and 12 gives twelfth, not twelveth.
Ordinal number words name a position instead of a quantity: first, second, third, twentieth. Switch the mode row to Ordinal and the converter applies the irregular forms (one to first, two to second, three to third, five to fifth, eight to eighth, nine to ninth, twelve to twelfth), turns a final -y into -ieth so 40 gives fortieth, and adds -th to everything else. 105 gives one hundred and fifth.
Only where the sentence or the form calls for it; no banking rule forces capitals. The converter copies plain lowercase text, one thousand two hundred and thirty-four, even though the panel on this page displays it with initial capitals, which is only a CSS style. Capitalise the first word as you would in any sentence, then follow whatever your document template already does.
It depends on the style guide you follow, and they disagree about where the cut-off falls: most spell out small numbers in running prose and switch to figures for large ones. Contracts and checks are a different case. There the amount is deliberately written twice, once in figures and once in words, so that the two can be checked against each other.
Select Currency, choose the currency, type the amount and copy the line onto the words row of the check. $1,250.75 gives one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-five cents; US check forms are usually filled in as One thousand two hundred fifty and 75/100. The words carry weight: UCC section 3-114, as published by the Cornell Legal Information Institute, provides that words prevail over numbers when the two disagree.
In Cardinal mode the digits after the point are read one at a time: 3.14159 is three point one four one five nine and 1.05 is one point zero five. In Currency mode the first two decimals become the subunit instead, so 1234.56 ends in and fifty-six cents, 2.01 in pounds gives two pounds and one penny, and a round 12.00 simply reads twelve dollars.
No. The converter uses the short scale only, so 12,345,678 comes out as twelve million three hundred and forty-five thousand six hundred and seventy-eight rather than one crore twenty-three lakh forty-five thousand six hundred and seventy-eight. Currency mode offers USD, EUR, GBP and JPY, so there is no rupees-and-paise wording either. Use the Cardinal output and rename the groups yourself if you need the Indian system.
Excel has no built-in function for it. Microsoft's support article Convert numbers into words states that Excel “doesn’t have a default function that displays numbers as English words in a worksheet”, and supplies a VBA macro instead: paste its SpellNumber code into a module and call it as =SpellNumber(A1), which turns 22.50 into Twenty-Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. That code lives in one workbook only, so for a handful of figures convert them here and paste the text into the cell.