Binary Alphabet

The binary alphabet is the set of 8-bit codes that represent each letter, A through Z, in a computer. Every letter has two codes, one for uppercase and one for lowercase, based on its ASCII value. Capital A is 65 in decimal, stored as 01000001; lowercase a is 97, stored as 01100001.

The table below lists all 52 codes. A few notes on getting the most out of it.

How to use this table

Writing a word in binary is a lookup exercise: find each letter, copy its byte, keep the bytes in order. Spell out something short like your initials first; it makes the structure obvious faster than any explanation. When you’re ready for whole words or sentences, the text to binary converter does the lookups for you, and the words in binary page collects popular phrases people ask for.

Reading binary back is the same walk in reverse. Match each byte against the table, or learn to do it by hand with the how to read binary tutorial, which decodes a real message step by step.

Two patterns worth spotting before you memorize anything. First, the alphabet is consecutive: B’s code is exactly one more than A’s, C’s is one more than B’s, all the way to Z. Know where the alphabet starts and you can count your way to any letter. Second, case is a single bit. Uppercase and lowercase codes for the same letter differ by exactly 32, so a capital’s byte and its lowercase twin match everywhere except one position. Once you see those two rules, the table shrinks from 52 arbitrary entries to two anchor points and some counting.

Letters only get you so far, of course. Digits, punctuation, and the space character have codes too, and the full binary chart covers the whole printable ASCII set if you need more than A to Z.

FAQ

What is the binary alphabet?

It’s the set of 8-bit ASCII codes for the letters A through Z, uppercase and lowercase. Each letter is stored as one byte: capital A is code 65, written 01000001. There are 52 codes in total, and they run in alphabetical order, so consecutive letters have consecutive values.

How do I write my name in binary?

Look up each letter of your name in the table, copy its byte, and string the bytes together in order, uppercase and lowercase as appropriate. A five-letter name becomes five bytes. To check your work or skip the manual lookups, paste your name into the text to binary converter.

Why does each letter need 8 bits?

Standard text encoding assigns every character one byte, and a byte is eight bits. ASCII technically fits in seven bits, but computers settled on eight-bit bytes as their basic storage unit, so letter codes get a leading zero. The padding keeps every character the same width, which makes decoding unambiguous.

What’s the difference between uppercase and lowercase in binary?

One bit. Each lowercase code is exactly 32 higher than its uppercase partner, and 32 is a single binary place value. Compare 01000001 with 01100001: they match in every position but one. Computers exploit this to switch case by flipping a single bit.

Is there a binary code for the space character?

Yes. The space is a regular ASCII character with its own byte, which is how multi-word binary messages keep their word boundaries. Punctuation marks and digits have codes too. This page sticks to letters; the binary chart lists the complete printable character set.