How to use this Morse code translator
A good translator should do one job without ceremony: take what you typed and show the other form immediately. This one watches the box as you type. Plain English becomes dots and dashes. A string of Morse becomes English. You can force the direction if auto-detect guesses wrong, which mainly happens with a very short fragment.
- 01Enter text or Morse. Type a message, or paste Morse using
.and-. Spaces separate letters. A slash/separates words. Unicode dots and dashes are normalized. - 02Read the result and the breakdown. Each character is listed under the output so you can check a single letter without retyping. Unknown symbols stay visible as
?. - 03Listen, save, or signal. Play audio at 5–40 WPM, download a WAV, copy the result, or share a link. The flashlight blinks the same rhythm on screen at a deliberately slow floor.
What this Morse code translator is for
People open one for a handful of concrete jobs, not for a lecture. Ham operators check a character before a CW contact. Teachers put a short phrase on a worksheet. Puzzle writers confirm that a string really says what they think. Someone planning a tattoo wants the letters spaced correctly before the ink is permanent. Outdoor groups look up SOS. That is the job of a Morse code translator: a correct map, then a tone you can check by ear. The tool above covers those jobs without an account.
Morse code itself is older than radio voice. Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail built it for the telegraph in the 1830s. The version used worldwide now is International Morse Code, written down in ITU-R M.1677-1. A dash is three times a dot. The gap inside a letter is one unit, between letters three units, and between words seven. Playback keeps that 1:3:7 ratio in the tone you hear, so practice audio matches what a receiver expects.
Text to Morse code, and the Morse code decoder
In the text direction, every supported character is mapped and letters are joined with a space. “WAVE” becomes .-- .- ...- .. Words are joined with / , which is the written convention most decoders expect. If you paste “café”, the accent is folded to E. That is a deliberate choice: English traffic stays readable, and the alphabet page explains the separate ITU code for é if you need it for study.
The Morse code decoder runs the map backwards. Paste .-- .- ...- . and you get WAVE. A vertical bar or a new line is treated as a word break, which helps when you copy Morse out of a chat or a scanned note. Anything that still does not match a known code is shown as a question mark. It will not invent a letter to make the sentence look tidy.
Examples you can paste
| Text | Morse | Why it comes up |
|---|---|---|
| SOS | ... --- ... | Distress signal. On the air it is often sent as one prosign with no letter gaps. |
| HELLO | .... . .-.. .-.. --- | The usual first test of any converter. |
| I LOVE YOU | .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- | Three words, so the slashes matter. |
| 123 | .---- ..--- ...-- | Digits are always five elements. |
| HELP? | .... . .-.. .--. ..--.. | Checks that punctuation is not dropped. |
Timing you can hear
Speed is words per minute using the PARIS standard: the word PARIS is 50 units, so one unit lasts 1.2 divided by your WPM. Move the speed control and the bars below follow the same setting used for playback. At 15 WPM a dot is short enough to practice, and still slow enough to count if you are new.
Tone frequency is independent of speed. 600 Hz is a common practice pitch. Anything from 400 to 1000 Hz is valid International Morse — the standard specifies rhythm, not the note. Volume only affects your speaker and the WAV file.
What is converted, and what is marked
Included
A–Z, 0–9, and ITU punctuation: period, comma, question mark, apostrophe, colon, slash, parentheses, equals, plus, hyphen, quotes, and @. Amateur extensions are accepted and marked as such on the Morse code alphabet.
Left visible, not guessed
Emoji, most symbols, and characters outside the map become ? plus a note. The Morse code translator does not silently skip them, because a missing letter in a callsign or a puzzle is worse than an obvious gap.
Audio, WAV, flashlight, and share links
Play sends a sine tone through the Web Audio API. Stop cuts every oscillator. Download WAV writes the same rhythm the Morse code translator just showed, so you can replay it on a phone with the screen off. Flashlight paints the screen black and white in time with the code, never faster than a 200 ms unit, and it stays off if your system asks for reduced motion.
Share link copies a URL whose fragment contains your text. The fragment is not sent to the server as a page request, but anyone you give the link to can read the message. Do not share a secret that way. For a practice plan that uses these controls, read learn Morse code.
Morse code translator FAQ
Is this Morse code translator free?
Yes. The Morse code translator runs in your browser with no account. Text is converted locally and is not uploaded.
How do I translate Morse code to English?
Paste dots and dashes with a space between letters and a slash between words. The Morse code translator also accepts middle dots and long dashes, then decodes them back to English.
Does the Morse code translator include numbers and punctuation?
Yes. Letters A–Z, digits 0–9, and the ITU-R M.1677-1 punctuation set are included. A few amateur-radio symbols are supported and labeled as extensions on the alphabet page.
How accurate is the Morse code translator?
It follows ITU-R M.1677-1 timing and character codes. Unknown characters are marked with a question mark instead of being dropped. Accented letters are folded to their base letter so English output stays unambiguous.
Can I practice with the audio?
Yes. Set words per minute and tone frequency, play the result, or download a WAV. The learn Morse code page explains a listening routine that uses this Morse code translator.