Hex to String Converter

Turn hexadecimal bytes into readable text. Paste your hex code, choose the character encoding, and convert. You can also switch the formats to turn text into hex, binary, decimal, or octal bytes.

From

Paste hex code numbers or drop a text file Character encoding

Text output

Accepts spaces, line breaks, commas, colons, and 0x, \x, or % byte prefixes. Conversion runs in your browser.

How to use the hex to text converter

Paste your bytes. Leave From set to Hexadecimal and To set to Text. Enter a continuous string such as 48656C6C6F, or separate the bytes with spaces.
Choose the encoding. ASCII works for basic English text. Choose UTF-8 for most modern text containing accented letters, other languages, or emoji. Match the encoding used by the source when you know it.
Select Convert. Read the result in the output box. An error explains what to fix if a digit is missing or the byte sequence cannot be decoded.
Copy or save the result. Copy places the text on your clipboard. Save downloads a text file. Use Reset to clear the fields, or Swap to reverse the conversion.

To work with a file, select Open File or drop a UTF-8 text file onto the input box. The file should contain hex digits, or readable text if From is set to Text. Raw image files, executables, and other binary files are not supported by this file reader.

What does hex to ASCII mean?

Hexadecimal writes numbers using sixteen digits: 0–9 and A–F. Two hex digits represent one byte, from 00 to FF. ASCII assigns characters to values from 0 to 127. For example, hex 41 is decimal 65, which is the ASCII code for a capital A.

The converter reads each pair of hex digits as a byte, then interprets those bytes using the selected encoding. That second step matters: hexadecimal tells you the byte values, but it does not tell you which character encoding created them.

Hex to string examples

Hex input	Encoding	Result
`48 65 6C 6C 6F`	ASCII or UTF-8	Hello
`34 32`	ASCII or UTF-8	42
`43 61 66 C3 A9`	UTF-8	Café
`F0 9F 98 80`	UTF-8	😀
`41 00 42 00`	UTF-16 Little Endian	AB

Notice that 34 32 gives the text “42.” It does not calculate the numeric value of hex 3432. This tool converts a sequence of bytes, rather than treating the entire input as one large number.

Which character encoding should I choose?

ASCII is enough for English letters, digits, common punctuation, and basic control characters. UTF-8 handles Unicode text; one character may use several bytes. For example, é takes the two UTF-8 bytes C3 A9.

UTF-16 uses two-byte code units. Select Little Endian or Big Endian to match the source’s byte order. Latin-1 and Windows-1252 can help with older Western European text. They differ in the 80–9F range, so switching between them can change the result.

If the output looks wrong, check the source encoding before changing the hex. Random bytes and encrypted data may have no readable text interpretation. The converter rejects malformed UTF-8 and UTF-16 instead of silently replacing invalid sequences.

Fixing common input errors

An odd number of digits: 4 1 is not accepted as one byte. Write 41. A group such as 486 is also incomplete; check the source for the missing digit.

Extra dump columns: paste only the hex bytes. Memory addresses, line offsets, and the text column from a hex dump can be mistaken for data. Remove those columns first.

Invisible output: a byte can represent a line break or a control character. The View button lists the first 256 bytes in hex so you can check the data without relying on visible text.

Binary input can be a continuous sequence of complete eight-bit bytes or separated byte values. Decimal and octal input should use separators between bytes. Every number must be within the byte range 0–255.

Frequently asked questions

Can I paste hex without spaces?

Yes. Both 48656C6C6F and 48 65 6C 6C 6F decode to Hello. Each group must contain complete pairs of hex digits.

Why does ASCII reject my input?

ASCII only covers byte values 00 through 7F. Accented letters, many symbols, and other languages need a different encoding. Select UTF-8 if that is how the original text was stored.

Does hex conversion decrypt a message?

No. Hex is a way to write bytes, not an encryption method. Converting encrypted bytes to text does not recover the original message.

Why is part of my output blank?

The input may contain spaces, tabs, line breaks, or control characters. For example, 00 is a null byte and 0A is a line feed. View bytes helps you inspect values that are difficult to see in a text box.

Can I convert text back to hex?

Yes. Set From to Text and To to Hexadecimal, select an encoding, and convert. Swap moves a successful result into the input and reverses the selected formats.

Is my input uploaded by the converter?

The converter processes input in your browser. Its conversion code does not send your input or result to a server. Open File reads a local text file; Save downloads the result as a UTF-8 text file.