Translate Text to Morse and Play Beeps

Morse code turns up in more places than you would expect: a scout badge, a puzzle room, a wedding sign, a school project, a radio licence course. In each case you need the same three things. You need the dots and dashes for a message, you need to read someone else's dots and dashes back into words, and you need to hear it, because Morse is a sound before it is a picture.

The short version: type your message into Morse Code Translator, copy the dots and dashes, and press Play to hear it as beeps at the speed you choose. Switch direction to decode a message.

The two directions

The tool has two buttons at the top: Text to Morse, and Morse to Text. Switching direction clears the box, so you start fresh.

Text to Morse. Type a message and the right-hand box shows the code. Letters in one word are separated by a single space, and words are separated by a space, a slash and a space. So SOS becomes ... --- ... and the sentence "Meet at 9, bring the key!" becomes -- . . - / .- - / ----. --..-- / -... .-. .. -. --. / - .... . / -.- . -.-- -.-.--, with the comma and exclamation mark included.

Morse to Text. Paste or type dots and dashes. Letters are separated by a space, and words by a slash, a vertical bar, three or more spaces, or a line break. The tool is forgiving about look-alike characters: a middle dot or bullet is read as a dot, and an en dash, em dash, minus sign or underscore is read as a dash. That matters when you copy a message from a document that has "prettified" the symbols. The text "-- . . - .- - ----." with three spaces between the words decodes as MEET AT 9.

What it can and cannot spell

The built-in table covers the 26 letters, the digits 0 to 9 and these punctuation marks: full stop, comma, question mark, apostrophe, exclamation mark, slash, both brackets, ampersand, colon, semicolon, equals, plus, hyphen, underscore, double quote, dollar sign and the at sign. That is enough for ordinary messages and for most email addresses.

Anything else has no Morse code. The tool does not guess. It leaves the character out and tells you which ones it skipped in a note under the boxes. For example, "Café Ü #1" gives -.-. .- ..-. / .---- and the note reads "No Morse code for: É Ü #". The word "Café" has silently lost its final letter in the code, so look at that note before you print a sign.

If your message uses accented letters, turn on the Extended characters switch. It adds Ä, Ö, Ü, É, Ñ, Å, Ç and È. With it on, "Café Ü #1" becomes -.-. .- ..-. ..-.. / ..-- / .---- and only the hash sign is reported as missing. Remember that extended letters are conventions used in some languages, not part of the basic international alphabet, so the person reading your message needs to know them.

One more detail: SOS is decoded as a single run. The distress signal is sent as nine elements with no gaps, ...---..., and the tool reads that unbroken run as SOS. The spaced version ... --- ... gives SOS too, because it is simply S, O, S.

Playing it as beeps

The Play button turns the code into a 620 Hz tone using your browser's audio. A Speed slider runs from 5 to 30 words per minute and starts at 15. The tool uses the standard "PARIS" timing, in which one dot lasts 1.2 seconds divided by the speed. That works out as follows:

• 5 WPM: a dot lasts 240 ms. Slow, good for beginners.
• 15 WPM: a dot lasts 80 ms. A comfortable practice speed.
• 20 WPM: 60 ms per dot.
• 30 WPM: 40 ms per dot. Fast.

The timing rules are the ones real operators use. A dash lasts three dots. The gap between the dots and dashes inside one letter is one dot, the gap between letters is three dots, and the gap between words is seven dots. You can check the arithmetic against the word PARIS, which is .--. .- .-. .. ... and adds up to 43 units of sound and silence inside the word, and 50 once the seven-unit space after it is included. That is why a speed in words per minute means what it says: 15 WPM is fifteen PARIS words in a minute.

For a feel of the speeds, the code for HELLO WORLD is 111 units long. At 15 WPM it plays in about 8.9 seconds, at 5 WPM in about 26.6 seconds, and at 30 WPM in about 4.4 seconds. SOS is 27 units, so it takes about 2.2 seconds at 15 WPM. You can also play pasted Morse in decode mode, and the tool will treat three or more spaces as a word gap. Press the button again to stop.

Three ways people use it

A message in a puzzle. Write the clue in the left box, copy the code, and put it on a card, a door sign or a light-up display. Always add a hint about the format, because solvers need to know whether a slash or a long space means a new word. A solver can paste your code into the tool and hear it, which helps people who learn better by ear.

A practice partner. Set the speed to 10 WPM, type a short phrase, play it without reading the code, and write down what you hear. Check your answer in the boxes. Increase the speed by a couple of words per minute when you get a phrase right every time. Starting with a speed that is too fast is the most common reason people give up.

A visual flash or a tapping message. Copy the dots and dashes into a document and print them in a large monospaced font. Dots and dashes should be clearly different in length, or the reader will confuse them. Use a font where the dash is much wider than the dot.

Combining it with the text tools

Morse works one line at a time, so it helps to tidy the message before converting. Case Converter is not needed for the letters, since the tool ignores case, but it is handy for presenting the decoded text in sentence case afterwards. Word Counter tells you how many words you have, which links directly to playing time, since a 20-word message at 15 WPM takes roughly 80 seconds once you allow for the longer average word. And Text Reverser is a fun way to build a second-layer puzzle: reverse the message first, encode it, and tell solvers to reverse the result. Our Text Reverser guide has more ideas like that.

Steps

1. Open Morse Code Translator and choose Text to Morse or Morse to Text.
2. If your message has accented letters, turn on Extended characters.
3. Type or paste your message and read the output box.
4. Check the note under the boxes for characters that were skipped or codes that were not recognised.
5. Set the speed with the slider, then press Play to hear it.
6. Copy the result for your sign, card or document.

The tool is a Professional Tool with 10 trial uses a day, then a $1 day pass or the $4.99 monthly plan. Converting on screen is free to look at. Copying the result and pressing Play are what use a trial use.

Common mistakes

Forgetting to read the "No Morse code for" note, and sending a message with letters missing. Writing words together with single spaces so that nobody can tell where a word ends. Using a font in which dots and dashes look alike. Playing the sound far too fast for a beginner. Using extended letters with someone who does not know them. And expecting the tool to understand a message with uppercase and lowercase meaning, since Morse has no case at all.

Summary

Morse is simple to write and surprisingly easy to get wrong in small ways. Morse Code Translator converts in both directions, tells you which characters it had to leave out, forgives look-alike symbols when decoding, and plays the result with real operator timing at the speed you choose. More utilities for text are in the text tools category.

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What do you use Morse for? Tell us on the contact page.