Unicode to UTF-8 Converter

This Unicode to UTF-8 converter turns code points like U+20AC, or plain text, into the UTF-8 bytes a file or network stores. It also decodes UTF-8 bytes and flags any invalid sequence.

Updated
Runs in your browser. Your text is not uploaded.
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How to use the Unicode to UTF-8 Converter

        
  1. Choose Text or code points → UTF-8 bytes, or the reverse.
  2. Type code points such as U+20AC U+00E9, or any text.
  3. Read the bytes and the character table.



                    

            
How it works

        
UTF-8 uses one to four bytes per code point, depending on its size:
Code point rangeBytesBit pattern
U+0000, U+007F10xxxxxxx
U+0080, U+07FF2110xxxxx 10xxxxxx
U+0800, U+FFFF31110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
U+10000, U+10FFFF411110xxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
The code point's bits fill the x positions from left to right.



                    

            
Examples

        
  • U+20AC (€) = e2 82 ac.
  • U+00E9 (é) = c3 a9.
  • U+1F600 (😀) = f0 9f 98 80.
  • U+0041 (A) = 41.



                    

            
Why UTF-8 won

        
UTF-8 stores ASCII text in exactly the same bytes as ASCII, so old files and protocols kept working. It needs no byte-order mark, and a lost byte only damages one character. Today it is used by about 98% of websites and is the default for HTML, JSON, and most programming languages.



                    

            
Limitations

        
  • Bytes must be valid UTF-8; overlong forms and lone surrogates are rejected.
  • Other encodings (Latin-1, UTF-16) are not decoded.



            

        

        
Frequently asked questions

        

                            

                    How many bytes does a UTF-8 character use?

                    
One to four. ASCII uses one, most European letters two, most Asian characters three, and emoji four.

                

                            

                    What is the UTF-8 encoding of €?

                    
e2 82 ac.

                

                            

                    Why do I see é instead of é?

                    
The UTF-8 bytes c3 a9 were read as Latin-1, which shows each byte as a separate character. Decode the text as UTF-8 instead.

                

                    

    

        

        

            
            
Often used together with the Unicode to UTF-8 Converter.