Translate text to Morse code and back. Free Morse code translator with audio playback (WPM, frequency, volume), visual flash mode, and full international Morse alphabet + digits + punctuation.
A free, real-time bidirectional Morse code translator. Type English text and see Morse instantly (.... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -..); type Morse and decode back to English. Web Audio API plays back the Morse with adjustable WPM (5-30 words per minute), frequency (400-1000 Hz), and volume sliders. Visual flash mode mirrors the audio for hearing-impaired users. Full International Morse Code coverage — 26 letters, 10 digits, 19 punctuation marks (. , ? ' ! / ( ) & : ; = + - _ " $ @). Auto-detects direction. Pure client-side, no backend.
Samuel F.B. Morse and Alfred Vail developed the original American Morse code in the 1830s for the electric telegraph. The version the world uses today is International Morse Code, standardised in 1865 by the International Telegraph Conference and refined by ITU recommendations. International Morse uses dots and dashes only (American Morse used spaces of varying length too — confusing). The SOS distress signal was adopted in 1906 at the Berlin Radio-Telegraphic Conference. Morse was the lingua franca of long-distance communication for a century — telegrams, ship-to-shore, military transmissions, early aviation — until voice radio and digital modes overtook it. Today it persists in amateur radio, aviation training, and assistive technology.
The cleverness of Morse is that the most common letters get the shortest codes. E (the most common English letter) is just . — one dot. T is - — one dash. A is .-. Less common letters get longer codes — Q is --.-, X is -..-, Z is --... This is an early example of frequency-weighted encoding, the same principle behind Huffman coding and modern data compression. Morse was, in effect, the first widely deployed compression algorithm.
The tool's defaults — 15 WPM, 600 Hz, 60% volume — match what most listening exercises and ham radio reference materials recommend. WPM: 15 is comfortable for learners; 25 is fluent; 40+ is contest-grade. Frequency: 600 Hz sits squarely in the human hearing sweet spot and matches the typical CW (continuous wave) tone radio operators use. Visual flash: turns audio into light blinks at the same timing — useful for deaf users, for practising in silent environments, or for sending Morse via flashlight in line-of-sight signalling. The tool uses a single Web Audio oscillator with envelope ramps to avoid the harsh "click" that simple square-wave Morse generators produce.
In Words Per Minute (WPM), based on the standard reference word "PARIS" which takes 50 dot-units to send. At 15 WPM (default), one dot = 1200/15 = 80ms. A dash is 3 dots, intra-letter gap is 1 dot, inter-letter gap is 3 dots, inter-word gap is 7 dots. The tool implements PARIS-standard timing exactly. To learn or practice, start at 5-10 WPM; experienced operators copy at 25-40 WPM, and contest operators push 50+ WPM.
A dot (.) is one short beep. A dash (-) is one long beep (3× a dot). Letters within a word are separated by one space. Words are separated by a forward slash "/" or three spaces. So "HELLO WORLD" in Morse is ".... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -..". The slash makes Morse readable when written, but the audio uses 7-dot timing rather than a literal slash sound.
SOS = ... --- ... — three dots, three dashes, three dots. It was chosen in 1906 as the international distress signal precisely because the pattern is unambiguous, easy to send, easy to recognise, and doesn't collide with any letter in the Morse alphabet (it's technically a "prosign", not the letters S-O-S). The continuous dots and dashes can also be sent as a single rhythmic burst rather than letter-by-letter, making it stand out in noisy radio conditions.
Yes — the visual reference card shows the entire Morse alphabet, and you can play any letter back at adjustable speed. Best practice for learning: start with audio at 5-10 WPM, master each letter's pattern, then gradually speed up. Avoid memorising visual dot/dash patterns — Morse is a sound language. Listening drills are how amateur radio operators and professionals learn it.
Amateur radio (HAM) operators still use Morse for low-power long-distance contacts because it cuts through noise that voice cannot. Aviation and maritime emergency procedures still teach SOS and a few core signals. Disabled users with limited motor function use single-switch Morse for text input. And it remains a core competency for elite military communications units. Even modern apps (some smart watches, some adaptive controllers) use Morse for low-bandwidth input.
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