Number to Words Converter: Numbers to English Words
Write any number as English words, up to 66 digits, with decimals, an optional British "and", ordinal words or cheque style, and turn number words back into digits. Nothing is uploaded.
Type a number or number words to see the conversion.
About the Number to Words Converter
The Number to Words Converter writes a number out in English words and reads English number words back into digits. Type 1234 and it shows one thousand two hundred thirty-four; type twenty-first or one million, two hundred and five in the other direction and it shows 21 or 1000205. It handles whole numbers of up to 66 digits, negative numbers and decimals, and offers an optional British "and", ordinal words and a cheque style for writing amounts. Everything runs in your browser; the numbers you type are never uploaded.
How to use it
Steps
- Choose a Direction: Number to words or Words to number.
- Type or paste the value. Commas, spaces and underscores between digits are ignored, so
1,234,567and1 234 567both work. - For number to words, choose a Form: Cardinal (twenty-one), Ordinal (twenty-first) or Cheque (Twenty-one dollars and 00/100), and tick British "and" if you want "one hundred and five".
- Read the result, which updates as you type, and use Copy to keep it.
Privacy
The conversion is done by code on this page. Nothing is sent to our servers, and nothing is kept once you close or reload the tab.
How numbers are named
Short scale
The converter uses the short scale, where each new name is a thousand times the last: thousand, million (10⁶), billion (10⁹), trillion (10¹²) and so on up to vigintillion (10⁶³). That covers every whole number below 10⁶⁶, which is 66 digits. Modern British and American English both use the short scale; the long scale, in which a billion is a million million, survives mainly in other European languages.
Hyphens and and
Compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine are written with a hyphen, as most style guides recommend. American usage leaves out "and" (one hundred five), while British usage puts it before the tens and units of each hundred and before a final group under a hundred (one million and five). The British "and" option switches between the two.
Decimals, ordinals and cheques
Digits after the decimal point are read one by one, so 3.05 becomes "three point zero five". Ordinal words change only the last word: twenty-one becomes twenty-first and one hundred becomes one hundredth. Cheque style capitalises the first word, adds "dollars" and writes the cents as a fraction of 100, the usual way to fill in the amount line of a cheque; it accepts at most two decimal places and no negative amounts.
Reading words back
The reader is tolerant: it ignores capital letters, hyphens, commas and the word "and", accepts "minus" or "negative" for a negative number, "a hundred" for 100, ordinals such as "fortieth", and digits mixed with words, as in "5 million". After "point", write one digit word at a time. An unknown word is named in the message so you can correct it.
Related tools
To write a number as Roman numerals instead, use the Roman Numeral Converter. To show a number in binary, hex or another base, use the Number Base Converter. For a value written as a power of ten, see the Scientific Notation Converter.
Open-source credits
- The converter is implemented in-house and uses no third-party library. Large numbers are handled with the browser's built-in
BigIntfrom ECMA-262. - Scale names are the standard short-scale names from thousand to vigintillion found in English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster, and compound numbers are hyphenated as The Chicago Manual of Style recommends for spelled-out numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Should I write "one hundred and five" or "one hundred five"?
Both are correct. British and most Commonwealth English include "and" before the last two digits, while American English usually leaves it out, especially on cheques. Tick British "and" to add it; the words-to-number reader accepts either form.
What is the largest number the converter can write?
It writes any whole number below 10^66, that is up to 66 digits, using short-scale names from thousand through vigintillion. A longer number is refused with a message, because there is no single agreed English name for the next scales.
How do I write an amount for a cheque?
Choose the Cheque form and type the amount with up to two decimal places, such as 1234.50. The page writes "One thousand two hundred thirty-four dollars and 50/100", the wording banks expect on the amount line, which you can then copy.
How are decimals written in words?
The whole part is written as a normal number and each digit after the decimal point is read separately after the word point, so 3.05 becomes "three point zero five". This is how decimals are usually read aloud in English.
Which spellings does the words-to-number direction accept?
It ignores capital letters, commas, hyphens and the word and, so "Twenty-One", "twenty one" and "twenty-one" all give 21. It also reads ordinals such as fortieth, "minus" or "negative" for negative numbers, and "a hundred" for 100.