How Morse Code Is Actually Structured
Morse code is not a cipher that maps one symbol to another; it is a timing scheme. Every character is a run of short and long keyed tones, and the silence between them carries as much meaning as the tone. The ratios are fixed: a dash lasts three dot lengths, the gap inside a character is one dot, the gap between characters is three, and the gap between words is seven. This tool uses the letter, digit and punctuation assignments in ITU-R M.1677-1, adds the accented letters used in regional practice, and supports the bracketed procedural signals such as <SOS> and <BT> that are sent as one unbroken symbol rather than as separate letters.
How to Translate Morse Code
- 1Choose whether you are encoding plain text or decoding Morse; the tool warns you if the pasted content looks like the other one.
- 2Type or paste your content. Decoding accepts dots and dashes separated by spaces, with a slash, a pipe or three spaces marking a word break.
- 3Read the result and copy it, or send it back through the box with “Use as input” to check that it round-trips.
- 4Set the speed in words per minute to see the real dot length and total transmission time for that message.
- 5Press play to hear the message as a keyed sidetone, and adjust the tone frequency to a pitch that is comfortable to copy.
When You Need a Morse Translator
Decode a message from a puzzle or game
Paste dots and dashes copied from an escape room clue or an alternate reality game and read the plain text, including unresolved groups flagged rather than dropped.
Practise receiving at a target speed
Play a message at 5 WPM while learning and raise the speed toward 20 WPM as your copy improves, using the same character set an examiner would send.
Check a beacon or identifier
Confirm the callsign an amateur radio beacon or aviation navigation aid is keying, and compare its timing with the standard element ratios.
Prepare a signal for a prop or exhibit
Work out exactly how long a message takes to send before wiring it into a light, buzzer or animation.
Frequently asked questions
Why is <SOS> different from typing S O S?
The distress signal is a prosign: nine elements sent as one continuous symbol with no letter gaps. Typed as three separate letters it becomes '... --- ...' with pauses, which is not the same transmission. Enter it in angle brackets to get the unbroken form '...---...'.
What does WPM mean when a message has no words?
Speed uses the PARIS convention. The word PARIS plus its trailing word gap is exactly 50 dot units, so 20 WPM means 1000 dot units per minute and therefore a 60 ms dot. That gives a single reference speed regardless of what you actually send.
Can it handle languages other than English?
It encodes the accented Latin letters used in regional practice, such as É, Ñ, Ö and Ü. Scripts with no Morse assignment, including Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, are listed as skipped characters instead of being silently dropped, because there is no standard way to send them directly.
Why did my decoded text come back in capitals?
Morse has no case. Every character decodes to a single form, and uppercase is the conventional way to write received traffic. Encoding is case-insensitive, so typing in lowercase produces the same code.
Does the audio or text leave my device?
No. Translation, timing and tone generation all happen in the page using the Web Audio API, so the tool works offline and nothing you type is transmitted anywhere.