Reading a received message
Paste the dots, dashes and slashes and it returns the text. If it looks fragmented, check the letter and word spacing.
Morse Code to Text
Translate Morse code back into readable text in your browser.
Maintained by Roshan.
Use Morse Code to Text
Converts morse code to text in this tab, with nothing sent anywhere.
Runs entirely on your deviceThe conversion happens in this browser tab. Nothing you type is uploaded, logged or stored, which is worth knowing for anything you would not paste into a search box.
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Browse all text toolsAbout Morse Code to Text
Decoding Morse turns the dots and dashes back into words, and the difficulty is entirely in reading the spacing correctly, because that is what carries the structure. In written Morse, a single space between groups of symbols separates letters, and a larger gap - usually written as a slash - separates words. Get those confused and the message either runs into one long word or fragments into single letters. This translator reads the standard written form: dots and dashes for the signals, spaces between letters, and a slash or a wide gap between words. It looks each symbol group up in the Morse table and reassembles the text, so a message tapped out or copied from a signal comes back as plain English.
Work through the input
- The input is split into words wherever a slash, or an unusually wide gap, appears.
- Within each word, symbol groups separated by single spaces are read as individual letters.
- Each group of dots and dashes is looked up in the standard International Morse table and replaced with its letter or digit.
- The decoded words are joined with spaces to reconstruct the readable message.
- Punctuation sequences defined in Morse are decoded alongside the letters and digits.
When morse code to text is useful
Checking your own sending
Translate text to Morse and back to confirm your spacing is unambiguous.
Check the output
- The spacing must follow the convention: single spaces between letters, a slash or wide gap between words. Ambiguous spacing produces the wrong grouping.
- A symbol group with no matching Morse sequence is skipped, since it cannot be decoded.
- It reads written Morse - dots, dashes, spaces and slashes - not audio; timing a recorded signal into symbols is a separate task.
- Extra or missing spaces are the usual cause of a garbled result, because Morse depends on them entirely.
- Non-standard or personal Morse variants may not match the international table.
Questions about Morse Code to Text
Why is my output all single letters?
The word gaps are probably missing. Words must be separated by a slash or a wide gap, or every letter is read as its own word.
What format should the Morse be in?
Dots and dashes, single spaces between letters, and a slash or wide gap between words.
Can it decode audio?
No. It reads written Morse. Turning a recorded beep into dots and dashes is a separate step.
What if a symbol is not valid Morse?
It is skipped, since there is no letter to map it to.
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