Text to Hex

What this Text to Hex tool does

This page uses the pipeline Unicode text → UTF-8 bytes → hexadecimal. The browser receives a JavaScript string, optionally normalizes it only when you choose a normalization form, encodes it with TextEncoder, then formats each resulting byte as two hexadecimal digits. Processing runs locally in your browser.

The tool is intentionally one-way. It does not decode hex on this route. Use Hex to Text when you need to parse hexadecimal bytes back into strict UTF-8 text.

Text characters vs UTF-8 bytes

ASCII makes text look byte-sized because A encodes as one byte, 41. Unicode text is broader. é encodes as C3 A9, € as E2 82 AC, and 😀 as F0 9F 98 80. A visible character can also contain several code points, such as a base letter plus a combining mark or an emoji sequence joined with a zero-width joiner.

UTF-8 hex examples

Output formats

48 65 6C
48656C
0x48 0x65 0x6C
\x48\x65\x6C

Byte pairs are the default because they are easy to scan and paste into byte-oriented tools. Continuous hexadecimal is compact. 0x-prefixed bytes are useful in source-code and debugging contexts where each byte should be explicit. \x-prefixed output is useful for byte escape notation. Hexadecimal casing controls the digits only; prefixes stay conventional as 0x and \x.

Hex bytes vs Unicode code points

C3 A9 and U+00E9 describe different layers. U+00E9 is the Unicode code point for é. C3 A9 is how that code point is encoded as UTF-8 bytes. If you need code-point notation, use Text to Unicode Code Points; if you need byte values for files, payloads or fixtures, use this page.

Do not convert the hexadecimal digits in a code point directly into bytes. U+1F600 is a Unicode scalar value, while F0 9F 98 80 is the UTF-8 byte sequence that represents it. The byte-oriented output from this page is appropriate for encoders, decoders, protocols and tests that expect actual UTF-8 bytes.

Unicode normalization and byte output

Normalization is off by default because encoding text as UTF-8 does not require changing the Unicode sequence. With normalization off, precomposed é becomes C3 A9, while decomposed e plus U+0301 becomes 65 CC 81. If you explicitly choose NFC, the decomposed sequence may normalize to the precomposed form and produce C3 A9.

Invisible and control characters

Tabs, line breaks, carriage returns, combining marks, zero-width joiners, variation selectors, bidirectional controls and zero-width spaces are preserved and encoded. The tool warns when invisible Unicode characters are present because they can affect byte counts and equality checks while remaining hard to see in the input field.

How to use the tool

1. Paste or type text into Input text.
2. Choose an output format.
3. Choose a separator where the format supports one.
4. Select uppercase or lowercase hexadecimal digits.
5. Leave normalization off unless you intentionally want to change the Unicode sequence before encoding.
6. Review the byte statistics and diagnostics, then copy or download the result.

Privacy and processing

This tool runs in your browser. Your input is not submitted to UnicodeNow. Output is written into textareas, and downloads use Blob URLs that are revoked after use.

Common uses

• Inspecting UTF-8 bytes.
• Preparing test fixtures.
• Debugging API payloads.
• Comparing normalized forms.
• Encoding emoji.
• Reviewing invisible characters.
• Creating source-code byte strings.

Example

Input text:

Hello, café 😀

UTF-8 hex:

48 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 63 61 66 C3 A9 20 F0 9F 98 80

Frequently asked questions