Text to Morse code: turn any message into Morse
To turn text into Morse code, write each letter, figure and punctuation mark as its pattern of dits and dahs, put one space between letters and a slash between words. HELLO WORLD becomes .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -... Morse has no capital letters, so case simply disappears, and many symbols have no code at all: those you spell out or leave out before you start.
Converting a message by hand
You need a chart, a pencil and about a minute per short sentence.
- Write the message in capitals, with room under each character. Capitals are not part of Morse; they just make each letter easier to read and harder to skip.
- Fix anything that has no code (the next section lists what does). Spell out symbols as words before you begin, not halfway through.
- Write each character’s code under it. Look up every one, even the letters you think you know; the mistakes hide in the familiar ones.
- Copy the codes out in a row: one space between the letters of a word, and a space, a slash and a space between words.
- Translate it back without looking at the original. If you get your message, you are done.
A worked example: MEET AT 6 is M --, E ., E ., T -, then A .-, T -, then the figure 6 -..... In a row: -- . . - / .- - / -.....
The check in step 5 matters more than it sounds, because a common slip is writing a letter backwards. Several letters are mirror images of each other: A .- and N -., D -.. and U ..-, G --. and W .--, B -... and V ...-, F ..-. and L .-... Read straight off a chart, it is easy to copy one for the other, and the result is a real letter, so nothing looks wrong until you translate it back.
What has a code, and what does not
Letters and figures are simple: A to Z and 0 to 9 all have codes, and every figure is five elements long. Punctuation is where converters and charts disagree, so here is what is standard and what is merely common.
| Character | Morse | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Period | .-.-.- |
ITU standard |
| Comma | --..-- |
ITU standard |
| Question mark | ..--.. |
ITU standard |
| Apostrophe | .----. |
ITU standard |
| Hyphen | -....- |
ITU standard |
| Slash | -..-. |
ITU standard |
| Open and close parenthesis | -.--. and -.--.- |
ITU standard |
| Quotation marks | .-..-. |
ITU standard |
| Colon | ---... |
ITU standard |
| Equals | -...- |
ITU standard |
| Plus | .-.-. |
ITU standard |
| At sign | .--.-. |
ITU standard, added in 2004 |
| Exclamation mark | -.-.-- |
commonly used |
| Ampersand | .-... |
commonly used |
| Semicolon | -.-.-. |
commonly used |
| Dollar sign | ...-..- |
commonly used |
| Underscore | ..--.- |
commonly used |
There is no code for #, %, *, emoji or most other symbols, and no separate code for capital letters. When your text has one of these, rewrite that part in words before you convert it:
- Symbols: 50% becomes 50 PERCENT, #1 becomes NUMBER 1.
- Emoji: say what the emoji meant. A heart can be LOVE.
- Accented letters: write the plain letter, so Ü becomes U. Some languages have extra codes for their own letters, but a reader who learned only the standard alphabet will not know them.
- Quotes and apostrophes: the curly ones a word processor makes are still quotes and apostrophes, so they take the plain codes above.
- Paragraphs: Morse has no line break, but BT,
-...-, is the usual way to mark a break between parts of a message.
Does Morse code have capital letters, spaces or emoji? goes further into what Morse cannot carry.
Prosigns: when letters become one character
Some things in Morse are written as two letters but sent as one character, with no letter gap between them. These are prosigns, and a plain converter has no way to know you meant one. Type AR and you get the two letters A and R, .- .-., when the end-of-message prosign is .-.-..
The usual way to mark a prosign in text is angle brackets (or a bar over the letters on paper):
| Written | Morse | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
<AR> |
.-.-. |
end of message |
<BT> |
-...- |
break, new section |
<SK> |
...-.- |
end of contact |
<KN> |
-.--. |
go ahead, named station only |
<HH> |
........ |
error, eight dits |
You may notice that AR has the same code as the plus sign, BT the same as equals and KN the same as the open parenthesis. That is not a mistake in the table: they really are the same signals, and context tells you which is meant.
SOS is the famous case. Converted letter by letter it comes out as ... --- ..., three letters with gaps. The distress signal is one continuous character, ...---...: nine elements with no letter gaps. If you are writing SOS for a sign, a puzzle or a piece of jewelry, decide which you mean; SOS in Morse code: how to send it correctly explains the difference.
Writing it out so it stays readable
Once your message is in Morse, the way you write it decides whether anyone else can read it.
- Use a plain period for each dit and a plain hyphen for each dah, not middle dots or long dashes.
- Put one space between letters and
/between words. A slash survives being pasted into places that squash extra spaces; a wide gap often does not. - Keep the Morse on its own line, away from the full stop that ends your sentence, which a reader will otherwise take for one more dit.
- If you type it in a word processor or post it online, watch for software that turns two hyphens into one long dash. How to copy and paste Morse code so it reads right shows how to switch that off on a Mac.
For a name, a bracelet or a tattoo, check every character twice and get a second person to translate it back cold. Mistakes in Morse are invisible to anyone who does not read it, which is most people, right up until someone who does.
Converting text on a Mac
If you convert messages often, Dot & Dash does it in Transcribe, on the Text to Morse side: write a message and its Morse appears, ready to Copy Morse or to play on the machine so you hear how it sounds. It reads letters, figures and punctuation, treats curly quotes and apostrophes as plain ones, and shows a character Morse has no code for as ? with a note, such as “Morse has no code for #”. For prosigns, use angle brackets, but only <AR>, <BT>, <SK> and <HH> are read as prosigns there; KN from the table above is not one of them, so type an open parenthesis, which has the same code. You can also Copy Text or Save the message to the Library for later.
Questions
Does Morse code have capital letters?
No. Morse has one code per letter and no way to mark case, so “Hello” and “HELLO” are sent the same way. Charts print letters in capitals by habit, not because Morse is in upper case.
How do you write a space between words in Morse?
In writing, use a slash with a space on each side. When Morse is sent as sound, the gap between words is seven units long, compared with three units between letters.
How do I write a number in Morse code?
Convert each figure on its own, with a space between them. The year 2026 is ..--- ----- ..--- -....: the figures 2, 0, 2 and 6.
Can every character be turned into Morse?
No. Letters, figures and common punctuation can, but symbols such as # and %, emoji and most other characters have no code. Spell them out in words before you convert the message.