Does Morse code have capital letters, spaces or emoji?
No, Morse code has no capital letters: A is .- whether you write it as A or a. It has no space character either, because the space between words is a silence, seven units long, written on paper as a slash. And it has no codes for emoji or for most symbols, such as # and %. What it does have is a fixed set: 26 letters, 10 figures, a short list of punctuation and a few prosigns.
The set is small, and for anyone sending by hand and copying by ear that is a feature: every extra code would be one more pattern to learn. Here is what fits in it and what to do with the rest.
No upper or lower case
Each letter has exactly one code. There is no shift, no mark for a capital and no separate set of small letters. HELLO, Hello and hello are all .... . .-.. .-.. ---.
Charts print the letters as capitals, including the ones on this blog, but that is a habit of writing, not part of the code. When a person or a decoder turns Morse back into text, they choose how to show it: all capitals, all small letters, or ordinary sentence case.
What this means in practice:
- Names and words that differ only by case come out the same. A name and the ordinary word spelled the same way are identical in Morse. Context tells the reader which you meant.
- Anything where case matters cannot be sent exactly as typed. A case-sensitive code or a username with mixed capitals loses that information. If the case matters, say so in words.
- You never need to think about it when sending. One code per letter is part of what makes Morse quick to learn.
The space is a silence
Morse has no code for a space. The gaps are made of time:
| Gap | Length | Written as |
|---|---|---|
| Between the dits and dahs of one character | 1 unit | nothing |
| Between characters | 3 units | one space |
| Between words | 7 units | a slash, / |
So a word space is something you leave, not something you send. There is no way to send two spaces in a row: a longer silence is just a longer pause, and a listener hears it as a word gap. Text conventions follow the sound, which is why written Morse uses a single space between letters and a slash between words, as in how to write Morse code in text.
For the layout a document might need, Morse has prosigns instead of keys:
- A new paragraph or a break: BT,
-...-(the same code as the equals sign). - The end of a message: AR,
.-.-.(the same code as plus). - The end of a contact: SK,
...-.-.
There is no tab, no line break as such and no bold or italic. If you need to show structure, say it in words or use BT between sections.
What Morse can and cannot send
Beyond the 26 letters and 10 figures, this is the punctuation you can rely on. The first group is in the international standard (ITU-R M.1677-1); the second is commonly used but not part of it.
| Mark | Morse code | In the ITU standard |
|---|---|---|
| Period | .-.-.- |
yes |
| Comma | --..-- |
yes |
| Question mark | ..--.. |
yes |
| Apostrophe | .----. |
yes |
| Hyphen | -....- |
yes |
| Slash | -..-. |
yes |
| Parentheses | -.--. and -.--.- |
yes |
| Quotation marks | .-..-. |
yes |
| Colon | ---... |
yes |
| Equals | -...- |
yes |
| Plus | .-.-. |
yes |
| At sign | .--.-. |
yes, since 2004 |
| Exclamation mark | -.-.-- |
no, commonly used |
| Ampersand | .-... |
no, commonly used |
| Semicolon | -.-.-. |
no, commonly used |
| Dollar | ...-..- |
no, commonly used |
| Underscore | ..--.- |
no, commonly used |
The at sign was added by the ITU in 2004, so an email address can be sent exactly. NAME@EXAMPLE.COM is:
-. .- -- . .--.-. . -..- .- -- .--. .-.. . .-.-.- -.-. --- --
There is no code for #, %, *, a currency sign other than the dollar, a bullet, any emoji, or most other symbols on a keyboard. Morse has one quotation mark and one apostrophe, so curly and straight quotes become the same code. Morse code punctuation goes through how to send each of the marks above.
How to send what Morse does not have
The answer is nearly always the same: say it in words. The words below are suggestions, not fixed conventions; any word your reader will understand does the job. Only 88 is established radio shorthand, and it means love and kisses, not a heart as such.
| You want to send | One way to say it |
|---|---|
# |
NUMBER, or just the figure |
% |
PERCENT, after the figures |
* |
STAR, or leave it out |
| A heart emoji | LOVE, or 88 |
| A smiling emoji | SMILE, or a word that says how you feel |
| A currency sign | the name of the currency |
| A capital that matters | say so: CAPITAL A, for example |
A few things to watch:
- Do not just drop a symbol. 50% with the sign removed is 50, which says something different. Spell the meaning out.
- Emoji carry tone, not words. A thumbs-up after a message changes how it reads. If the tone matters, add a word: OK, GOOD, THANKS.
- The figure zero and the letter O are different codes. O is
---and 0 is-----, so there is no confusion between them in Morse even where a font makes them look alike.
For messages to someone close, I love you in Morse code has ways to say what an emoji would.
What a converter does with them
Any tool that turns text into Morse has to do something with a character Morse lacks. It can drop the character silently, which is tidy but can change the meaning, or it can mark the gap so you notice and reword.
Dot & Dash does the second. In its Text to Morse screen, a character Morse has no code for shows as ? with a note such as “Morse has no code for #”, so you can see which character to spell out, and curly quotes are read as plain ones. Its Type Anywhere feature, which types what you key into other apps, has to pick a case. It capitalizes the first letter of a run and the first letter after a period, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space; everything else is lower case. So HELLO WORLD, a full stop, then HI comes out as “Hello world. Hi”. A run starts again whenever you type, click or switch apps yourself.
Text to Morse code covers converting a whole message in more detail.
Questions
Is Morse code case sensitive?
No. Each letter has a single code, so capital and small letters are sent the same way. Whoever decodes the message decides how to write it.
Is there a Morse code for a space?
No. The space between words is a silence seven units long. On paper it is written as a slash between words, with a single space between the characters of a word.
Can you send an emoji in Morse code?
No. Morse has codes only for letters, figures, some punctuation and a few prosigns. Send the meaning in a word instead, such as LOVE or OK.
Is there a Morse code for the hash sign or percent?
No. Neither # nor % has a code. You can spell out a word such as NUMBER or PERCENT, or reword the message so the symbol is not needed.