Morse Code Translator

Free Morse code translator — type either way, hear it at a real speed, watch it flash, and save the audio.

Both Directions, Detected
Sound, Light & WAV
Nothing Leaves Your Device
Your Text or Morse
Result
Listen & Watch
ITU timing — 1 unit = 1200 ÷ WPM ms
18 WPM
600 Hz
Signal lamp

No sign-up, no watermark, no limit on how much you translate.

International Morse Code Chart
Print this page for a paper copy
A.-
B-...
C-.-.
D-..
E.
F..-.
G--.
H....
I..
J.---
K-.-
L.-..
M--
N-.
O---
P.--.
Q--.-
R.-.
S...
T-
U..-
V...-
W.--
X-..-
Y-.--
Z--..
0-----
1.----
2..---
3...--
4....-
5.....
6-....
7--...
8---..
9----.
..-.-.-
,--..--
?..--..
'.----.
!-.-.--
/-..-.
(-.--.
)-.--.-
&.-...
:---...
;-.-.-.
=-...-
+.-.-.
--....-
_..--.-
".-..-.
$...-..-
@.--.-.

How to use the Morse code translator

Type in the left box and the answer appears on the right. There is no mode switch, because the Morse code translator online works out which way round you meant: letters become dots and dashes, dots and dashes become English. That is the whole of it, and it is why an easy Morse code translator should not need instructions at all.

People arrive looking for slightly different things — a Morse code translator to text, a Morse code translator to English, a Morse code generator online, a Morse code converter online — and every one of them is the same job seen from a different side. One Morse code translator online tool, read in whichever direction you happen to need.

  • English to Morse. Type words. The Morse code translator English to Morse direction handles letters, numbers and punctuation together.
  • Morse to English. Paste dots and dashes. The Morse code translator Morse code to English direction reads them straight back — this is the Morse code translator code to text job people usually arrive for.
  • Listen. Press Play. Adjust the speed and pitch first if you want; the tone follows the standard timing exactly.
  • Watch. The signal lamp flashes in step with the sound, driven by the same timings, so what you see and what you hear cannot drift apart.
  • Keep it. Copy the text, or download the audio as a WAV file.

What the dots and dashes really are

Morse is not a set of shapes. It is a rhythm, and the whole system is four durations:

ElementLengthWritten as
Dot (dit)1 unit.
Dash (dah)3 units-
Gap inside a letter1 unitnothing
Gap between letters3 unitsa space
Gap between words7 units/

Because it is timing rather than shape, the same message is identical whether it is sent by a key, a lamp or a buzzer. That is also why this page gives you sound and a light from the same source. As a Morse code translator by sound it plays that rhythm as a tone; as a Morse code translator light it flashes the identical rhythm on the lamp. The Morse code translator listen button and the lamp are two views of one signal, not two separate features.

Speed, and why 1200 keeps appearing

Morse speed is measured in words per minute, but not any words — against PARIS, chosen because it is exactly 50 units long including the gap that follows it. Send PARIS twenty times in a minute and you are at 20 WPM. That gives one line of arithmetic, and every correct implementation uses it:

  • one unit = 1200 ÷ WPM milliseconds — so 20 WPM makes a 60 ms dot, and a dash three times that.

Beginners usually sit around 5–10 WPM; amateur radio operators commonly work at 20–25; 5 WPM was the old licence threshold. The pitch is a matter of taste, and 600 Hz is the usual default because it cuts through noise without being tiring.

Numbers, punctuation and the full alphabet

All ten digits are here, which is what a Morse code translator numbers search is after, and they follow a pattern worth noticing: 1 is .---- and 9 is ----., dots giving way to dashes one at a time, with 0 as five dashes. Going the other way, a Morse code translator numbers to letters conversion is the same operation — digits and letters share one table.

The chart above is the complete Morse code translator alphabet, and it doubles as a Morse code translator chart or Morse code translator sheet if you print the page. It is real text rather than an image, so it copies cleanly and stays sharp on paper — which is what most Morse code translator printable searches actually want.

Everything here is Morse code translator international standard: the ITU version used worldwide, not the older American Morse with its internal spaces. Characters outside the standard have no equivalent at all, and the page names the ones it skipped rather than dropping them quietly.

SOS, and why it is not three letters

... --- ... is sent as one unbroken signal with no gaps between the groups, which makes it a prosign rather than the letters S, O and S. It was picked in 1905 because that rhythm is impossible to mistake and easy to send badly and still be understood. It stands for nothing — “Save Our Souls” was invented afterwards.

Type it here and you get ... --- ... with the ordinary letter gaps, because that is how it is written down and how anyone reading it expects to see it. The unbroken run is what an operator keys, not what appears on paper.

The other phrase people come here for is I love you: .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-. Try the sample buttons above for both.

What this tool does not do

Worth saying plainly, because plenty of pages imply otherwise. This translates typed text and typed Morse. It cannot decode Morse from an audio recording, a photograph or a video.

That is a deliberate limit rather than a missing feature. Decoding a recording means finding tone edges through background noise and then inferring the sender's speed and rhythm, and a hand-sent signal is deliberately irregular. The result would be wrong often enough that you could not tell a good decode from a bad one — and a translator you cannot trust is worse than none. If you have audio, listen and tap the dots and dashes in by hand; that is genuinely faster than arguing with a bad decoder.

Writing Morse down

Written Morse needs a mark for the word gap, because on paper a seven-unit silence looks exactly like a three-unit one. The convention is a slash, and that is what this page produces. Pasting Morse in is more forgiving: a slash, a pipe, or a run of three or more spaces are all read as a word break, and en dashes, em dashes and middots are treated as the dashes and dots they were meant to be before an editor got to them.

One thing that genuinely cannot be recovered is Morse with the spaces removed altogether. ...---... could be SOS, or EEETTTEEE, or a dozen other readings, and nothing in the code says which. If you have a run with no spacing, the gaps have to be guessed from context rather than decoded.

Frequently Asked Questions

Type in the left box. If you type letters you get Morse; if you type dots and dashes you get English back. The direction is worked out from what you type, so there is no mode to switch. Press Play to hear it, or Send back to push the result into the input box.
A dot is one unit of time and a dash is three. The gap inside a letter is one unit, between letters three, and between words seven. Morse is a rhythm rather than a set of shapes, which is why the same message sounds identical whether it is sent by key, by light or by sound.
Speed is measured in words per minute against the reference word PARIS, which is exactly 50 units long. That gives the formula this page uses: one unit lasts 1200 divided by the speed, in milliseconds. Beginners usually start around 5 to 10 WPM, amateur radio operators commonly work at 20 to 25, and 5 WPM was the old licence requirement.
Yes. All ten digits are included, along with the punctuation defined by the ITU standard: full stop, comma, question mark, apostrophe, exclamation mark, slash, brackets, ampersand, colon, semicolon, equals, plus, hyphen, underscore, quotation mark, dollar and at. Anything outside that set has no Morse equivalent, and the page tells you which characters it skipped rather than dropping them silently.
Three dots, three dashes, three dots: ... --- ... Strictly it is a prosign, sent as one continuous signal with no letter gaps rather than as the three letters S, O and S. This page writes it and plays it with the normal letter gaps, because that is how it is always written down; the unbroken run is what an operator actually keys. It was chosen because that rhythm is unmistakable and easy to send under pressure, not because the letters stand for anything.
No, and it is worth being straight about that. Decoding a recording means detecting tone starts and ends through background noise and then guessing the sender's speed, which is unreliable enough that a wrong answer would look like a right one. This tool works from typed text and typed Morse only.
A slash marks the gap between words. Written Morse needs it because a seven-unit silence looks the same as a three-unit one on paper. This page writes word gaps as a slash and also accepts a pipe, or a run of three or more spaces, when you paste Morse in.
No. Unlike a Morse code translator website that does the work on a server, the translation, the audio and the WAV file are all produced in this page, so nothing is sent anywhere. It also keeps working with no connection once the page has loaded.