Morse Code Translator — Text to Morse and Back

What it is

A two-way Morse code translator. Type a message and see it in dots and dashes, or paste a string of Morse and read it as plain text. It is handy for escape-room puzzles, scout activities, secret notes in a birthday card, checking a signal you heard in a film, or getting started with amateur radio. The chart comes straight from the international standard, and you can play the result as a tone to train your ear. Everything happens in your browser; nothing you enter leaves your device.

How to use

1. Pick a direction: Text → Morse or Morse → Text. A sample phrase is filled in so you see a result right away.
2. Type or paste into the box. When writing Morse, leave one space between letters and use / between words.
3. Press Copy next to the result. Switching direction moves the current result into the input box, so you can check a round trip in one click.
4. If you paste dots and dashes while in Text → Morse, a hint offers to switch to decoding.
5. To listen, set the speed (5 to 40 WPM) and tone (400 to 1000 Hz) and press Play. Stop cuts the sound immediately.
6. Open the Morse chart to see every letter, figure, punctuation mark and service signal, or the NATO / ICAO chart for the spelling words and how to say them.

How it works

• Chart. Codes follow ITU-R Recommendation M.1677-1 (10/2009), International Morse code: letters A–Z plus É, figures 0–9, the punctuation marks . , : ? ’ - / ( ) “ = + × @, and the service signals understood, error, invitation to transmit, wait, end of work and starting signal.
• Encoding ignores case. Letters are joined with one space and words with “ / “. Runs of spaces or line breaks count as a single word break. Characters with no code are dropped and each is listed once under “Not converted”.
• Multiplication sign. × uses the same code as x (-..-), so decoding it returns x.
• Decoding reads ·, •, −, –, — and _ as dots and dashes. Letters are split on spaces; words on a slash, two or more spaces, or a line break. Unknown codes become [?]. The invitation to transmit (-.-) is identical to K and decodes as k; the other service signals are shown by name, for example [Error].
• Timing, from the same Recommendation: a dash is three dots, the gap inside a character is one dot, between characters three dots and between words seven dots.
• Speed is not part of the ITU text. The tool uses the widely used PARIS convention, where a dot is 1200 ÷ WPM ms. Each tone fades in and out over 5 ms to avoid clicks.
• NATO / ICAO spelling alphabet. Letters use the radiotelephony spelling alphabet of ICAO Annex 10, Volume II, 5.2.1.3 (Alfa, Bravo … Zulu, with the official spellings Alfa and Juliett); figures use the pronunciations in 5.2.1.4 (ZE-RO, WUN, TOO, TREE, FOW-er, FIFE, SIX, SEV-en, AIT, NIN-er). Maritime radio uses different figure words, which are not shown.
• Korean Morse. Hangul is sent with the Korean (국문) table of Korea’s radio station operation rules (Central Radio Management Office notice No. 2020-1, Annex 1): 14 consonants and 12 vowels, one code per letter, with double consonants and compound vowels sent as their basic letters. Because a code such as “.” means E in the international table and ㅏ in the Korean one, the decoder asks which table to read with.
• Up to 10,000 characters can be converted at once.

Examples

Input	Direction	Result
SOS	Text → Morse	... --- ...
HELLO WORLD	Text → Morse	.... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -..
Café	Text → Morse	-.-. .- ..-. ..-..
[email protected]	Text → Morse	. -....- -- .- .. .-.. .--.-. - --- --- .-.. ... -. .- -.-. -.- .-.-.- -.-. --- --
.... .. - .... . .-. .	Morse → Text	hi there
··· ——— ···	Morse → Text	sos
-..-	Morse → Text	x
SOS	NATO line	Sierra Oscar Sierra
한글	Text → Morse	.--- . ..-. .-.. -.. ...-

SOS played at 15 WPM is 27 dot lengths of 80 ms each, so it lasts 2.16 seconds. The word PARIS at 20 WPM takes 43 dot lengths, or 2.58 seconds, before the word gap.

Tips

Spacing is everything in Morse. “.-” is A, but “. -” is E followed by T, so check the gaps when a decoded word looks wrong. The same rhythm works with a flashlight or a tapping finger, not just sound.