Morse Code to Text Translator, With Audio
Decode International Morse code to text in your browser. Paste dots and dashes with any separator, see unknown codes named, and play the code as sound or light. Nothing is uploaded.
Write procedural signals in angle brackets, such as <AR> or <SK>. When on, their codes decode as prosigns.
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Sound and light
Send each letter at the character speed but stretch the gaps, a common way to learn.
About decoding Morse code to text
This page reads International Morse code and writes it out as plain text. Paste dots and dashes from a puzzle, a message, a training exercise or a transcript of a radio signal, and the letters appear as you paste. Morse to text is already selected; switch the direction to encode text instead. The decoder follows Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1, so it knows every letter, the accented E, the digits and the official punctuation marks. Decoding happens in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
How to decode Morse code
Steps
- Paste or type the code into Morse code. Put a space between letters and a slash, a line break or several spaces between words.
- Read the decoded message under Text, then press Copy.
- If a note lists unknown codes, check those groups for a missing or extra signal.
- Press Play under Sound and light to hear the code, or Swap to turn the text back into code.
Which notations it understands
Morse code is written in many slightly different ways, and the decoder accepts all the common ones. A dot may be a full stop, a bullet • or a middle dot ·. A dash may be a hyphen, a minus sign −, an en dash, an em dash or an underscore. Letters may be separated by single spaces or by pipes, as in ...|---|.... A word ends at a slash, at a line break or at two or more spaces, so .... .. - .... . .-. . decodes to HI THERE. Spaces around a slash do not matter.
Unknown codes
A group of signals that is not an International Morse character is left out of the decoded text and named once in a note, for example Unknown codes, left out: ".......". The usual causes are two letters run together without a space, a dot lost in copying, or a symbol from an older or national variant of Morse, such as the American Morse used on early telegraph lines or a letter from another alphabet. Decoded text is shown in capitals, because Morse code has no letter case.
Prosigns
Radio operators use procedural signals such as ...-.- for end of work. Turn on Prosigns and these codes decode to bracketed names such as <SK>, <AR> or <KN>. Some prosigns share their code with a punctuation mark: with prosigns on, .-.-. reads as <AR> rather than +, -...- as <BT> rather than =, and -.--. as <KN> rather than an opening bracket.
Hearing the code
Reading Morse by ear is a different skill from reading it on paper. Under Sound and light you can play the pasted code at 5 to 40 words per minute, with a tone between 400 and 1000 Hz and optional Farnsworth spacing that stretches the gaps for learners. A light flashes in time with the tone, and Download WAV saves the audio for practice away from the screen.
Related tools
For other codes that turn characters into symbols, see the Text to Binary converter and the Base64 encoder and decoder. To change the letter case of the decoded message, use the Text Case Converter.
Open-source credits
The decoder is implemented in-house for this site and uses no third-party library. Its code table follows Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1, International Morse code, and playback uses the PARIS word timing and Farnsworth spacing published by the ARRL.