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Hex to ASCII Text Converter — Decode Hexadecimal to ASCII.

Decode hex to ASCII instantly using our hex to ASCII text converter. Translate hexadecimal byte strings into readable text characters, compare upper and lower case character encoding table offsets, and learn how to convert base-16 strings to letters with step-by-step byte parsing.

Try it: Hex to ASCII Converter

Text Result: Hello
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Popular Hex to Char / ASCII Online Reference Table

Below is an instant lookup table answering top search queries like hex to char converter, hex to ascii online, and hex 20 in ascii. Click any row to test the string in the decoder above.

Hex Byte Code ASCII Character Decimal Usage / Category
20 [Space] 32 Word separator / spacing
41 A 65 First uppercase alphabet letter
61 a 97 First lowercase alphabet letter
30 0 48 Digit zero character
0D 0A / 0d0a hex to ascii CR + LF 13 10 Windows line break / Newline
0A / 0a hex to ascii LF 10 Linux/Unix Line Feed (Newline)
0D / 0d hex to ascii CR 13 Carriage Return control character
00 / 00 hex to ascii NUL 0 Null terminator byte
70 / 0x70 to ascii p 112 Lowercase letter 'p'

What is hexadecimal to ASCII conversion?

Hexadecimal (hex) is a base-16 number system that uses digits 0–9 and letters A–F to represent numbers. It is commonly used in computer systems to express binary data in a compact, human-readable format. Each hexadecimal digit can be represented by exactly four bits in binary (bin). ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding language standard that maps numeric codes from 0 to 127 to specific text characters, including letters, digits, punctuation, and control codes. Originally standardized by ISO, ASCII is the foundational character language for modern computer networks.

When you convert hex to ASCII, you are translating hexadecimal byte values back into the text characters they represent. Each pair of hex digits is called a byte, which maps to one ASCII character. For example, 48 in hex equals decimal 72, which represents the letter 'H'.

This conversion is essential in many fields: network protocol analysis, debugging binary file formats, reading memory dumps, decoding URL-encoded strings, and working with serial communication protocols. If you need the reverse operation, see our ASCII to hexadecimal converter.

How to decode a hex string to ASCII text (Hex to Char).

Follow these steps to manually decode any hexadecimal string into ASCII characters:

  1. Split into byte pairs: Divide the hex string from left to right into groups of two characters. Each pair represents one byte (one ASCII character). A space or colon is often used as a separator between bytes. For example, 48656C6C6F becomes 48 65 6C 6C 6F.
  2. Convert each pair to decimal: Use the formula (first digit × 16) + second digit. For hex digits A–F, use values 10–15. Example: 6C = (6 × 16) + 12 = 108.
  3. Look up the ASCII character: Find the decimal value on the ASCII reference table. A character like an opening bracket [ or closing bracket ] has its own specific hex value. Decimal 108 maps to the character 'l'.
  4. Join all characters: Combine the results in order to form the decoded text string.

Step-by-step hex to ASCII example.

Let's decode the hex string 48 65 6C 6C 6F to ASCII text:

  • Byte 1: 48 ➔ Decimal: (4 × 16) + 8 = 72 ➔ Character: 'H'
  • Byte 2: 65 ➔ Decimal: (6 × 16) + 5 = 101 ➔ Character: 'e'
  • Byte 3: 6C ➔ Decimal: (6 × 16) + 12 = 108 ➔ Character: 'l'
  • Byte 4: 6C ➔ Decimal: (6 × 16) + 12 = 108 ➔ Character: 'l'
  • Byte 5: 6F ➔ Decimal: (6 × 16) + 15 = 111 ➔ Character: 'o'
  • Decoded text: "Hello"

Let's also decode 57 6F 72 6C 64:

  • 57 ➔ Dec 87 ➔ 'W'
  • 6F ➔ Dec 111 ➔ 'o'
  • 72 ➔ Dec 114 ➔ 'r'
  • 6C ➔ Dec 108 ➔ 'l'
  • 64 ➔ Dec 100 ➔ 'd'
  • Decoded text: "World"

Character Case, Symbols, and English Alphabet Encoding

An important aspect of hex to ASCII conversion is understanding how character case affects the hexadecimal value. In the standard English alphabet encoding, uppercase and lowercase letters are assigned entirely different numeric codes. For instance:

  • Uppercase letters: 'A' through 'Z' correspond to hex values 41 through 5A (decimal 65 to 90).
  • Lowercase letters: 'a' through 'z' correspond to hex values 61 through 7A (decimal 97 to 122).
  • Punctuation marks & symbols: Common keyboard symbols like the exclamation mark (! is hex 21), at symbol (@ is hex 40), and hash/pound sign (# is hex 23) also have specific 7-bit byte codes in the ASCII encoding standard.

Standard ASCII is a 7-bit encoding that only covers 128 characters, which is perfect for basic English text, digits, and control characters. However, it lacks support for accent marks, European letters (like Latin-based characters), and non-English scripts (such as Cyrillic or Chinese). For multilingual text, modern computer systems use UTF-8 (Unicode), which is backwards-compatible with ASCII for the first 128 characters but uses multiple bytes for symbols from other languages.

Common hex to ASCII conversions.

Here are the most frequently searched hex values and their ASCII meanings. These come up often when analyzing log files, network packets, and encoded data:

Hex Dec ASCII Description
000NULNull character (string terminator)
099HTHorizontal Tab
0A10LFLine Feed (Unix newline)
0D13CRCarriage Return
0D 0A13, 10CR+LFWindows newline (CRLF)
2032SPSpace character
2D45-Hyphen / Minus sign
30480Digit zero
4165AUppercase letter A
5A90ZUppercase letter Z
6197aLowercase letter a
7A122zLowercase letter z
7F127DELDelete character

Understanding 0d0a hex to ascii (CRLF vs LF)

One of the most common reasons to decode hex to ASCII is to identify line break characters in files or network streams. Different operating systems use different hex codes for newlines:

  • 0d0a hex to ascii: The hex sequence 0D 0A decodes to Carriage Return (CR) followed by Line Feed (LF). This is the standard newline format for Windows (CRLF).
  • 0a hex to ascii: The hex value 0A decodes to Line Feed (LF). This is the standard newline format for Linux and Unix-like systems.
  • 0d hex to ascii: The hex value 0D decodes to Carriage Return (CR), historically used in classic Mac OS.

Complete hex to ASCII table (printable characters).

Below is the full hex to ASCII reference chart for all printable ASCII characters (hex 20 to 7E). Use this table to quickly look up any hexadecimal code and find its corresponding character. For the complete table including control characters, see our CS cheat sheets.

Hex Dec Char Hex Dec Char

Hex to ASCII in programming languages.

Here is how you can programmatically decode hex strings to ASCII characters in popular programming environments. For more conversion code snippets, visit our developer code snippets page.

Python 3 No libraries needed 
# Convert hexadecimal string to ASCII text
hex_str = "48656C6C6F"
ascii_str = bytes.fromhex(hex_str).decode("utf-8")
print(ascii_str)  # Output: Hello

# Alternative: character by character
hex_pairs = ["48", "65", "6C", "6C", "6F"]
result = "".join(chr(int(h, 16)) for h in hex_pairs)
print(result)  # Output: Hello
JavaScript / Node.js Browser & Node 
// Browser: hex string to ASCII text
const hexStr = "48656C6C6F";
const ascii = hexStr.match(/.{2}/g)
  .map(byte => String.fromCharCode(parseInt(byte, 16)))
  .join("");
console.log(ascii); // Output: Hello

// Node.js: using Buffer
const text = Buffer.from(hexStr, "hex").toString("utf-8");
console.log(text); // Output: Hello
C Standard Library 
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main() {
    const char *hex = "48656C6C6F";
    int len = strlen(hex);
    for (int i = 0; i < len; i += 2) {
        char byte[3] = {hex[i], hex[i+1], '\0'};
        printf("%c", (char)strtol(byte, NULL, 16));
    }
    // Output: Hello
    return 0;
}
Bash / Linux CLI Using xxd or printf 
# Using xxd (reverse hex dump)
echo -n "48656C6C6F" | xxd -r -p
# Output: Hello

# Using printf with escape sequences
printf "\x48\x65\x6C\x6C\x6F\n"
# Output: Hello
Excel / Google Sheets LAMBDA Formula 
# Single 2-digit cell convert (e.g. cell A1 containing 48)
=CHAR(HEX2DEC(A1))

# Continuous hex string (e.g. A1 = "48656C6C6F")
=REDUCE("", SEQUENCE(LEN(A1)/2,,,2), LAMBDA(acc,idx, acc & CHAR(HEX2DEC(MID(A1,idx,2)))))

Hex to ASCII in security, networking, and forensics.

Understanding hex-to-ASCII decoding is a critical skill in multiple technical disciplines. Here are the most common real-world contexts where you'll need it:

URL Percent-Encoding

URLs encode non-ASCII characters as %XX where XX is the hex code. For example, a space becomes %20 (hex 20 = decimal 32 = ASCII Space), and %40 is @. Decoding these percent-encoded sequences is pure hex-to-ASCII conversion.

Network Packet Analysis (Wireshark)

Protocol analyzers like Wireshark display packet payloads as hex dumps. To read the human-readable content of an HTTP request, DNS query, or SMTP email captured in a hex dump, you translate the hex byte pairs to ASCII characters — revealing URLs, hostnames, and message bodies.

JWT Token Decoding

JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are Base64-encoded, but the underlying payload bytes can be inspected in hex. Security researchers decode raw token bytes to inspect header and claim values, checking for algorithm confusion vulnerabilities or unexpected fields.

Binary File Forensics (Magic Bytes)

Every file format has a signature in its first few bytes. A JPEG starts with FF D8 FF, a PDF with 25 50 44 46 (which decodes to ASCII "%PDF"), and a PNG with 89 50 4E 47. Forensic analysts hex-decode file headers to identify file types regardless of their extension.

Serial Communication & Embedded Systems

Microcontrollers and embedded devices often transmit data as raw hex bytes over UART, SPI, or I2C. Engineers decode these hex streams to ASCII to verify sensor readings, debug communication protocols, and inspect command-response sequences between devices.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you convert hex to ASCII? ▼

To convert hex to ASCII, split the hexadecimal string into two-character byte pairs. Convert each pair to its decimal value using the formula (first digit × 16) + second digit. Then look up each decimal value in the ASCII table to find the corresponding character. Join the characters together to get the decoded text.

What is 0A hex in ASCII? ▼

The hex value 0A (decimal 10) represents the Line Feed (LF) control character in ASCII. On Unix and Linux systems, LF alone serves as the newline character. It instructs the terminal or text editor to move the cursor down to the next line.

What is 0D hex in ASCII? ▼

The hex value 0D (decimal 13) represents the Carriage Return (CR) control character in ASCII. It moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line without advancing to the next line.

What is 0D0A hex in ASCII? ▼

The hex sequence 0D 0A represents CR+LF (Carriage Return followed by Line Feed). This is the standard newline sequence used by Windows operating systems. When you see 0D0A in a hex dump, it marks the end of a line in a Windows text file.

What is hex 20 in ASCII? ▼

Hex 20 (decimal 32) represents the Space character in ASCII. It is the first printable character in the ASCII table and is the most common character used to separate words in text. In URLs, spaces are often encoded as %20, which is the hex value with a percent prefix.

What is the difference between hex and ASCII? ▼

Hexadecimal is a base-16 number system used to represent binary data compactly. ASCII is a character encoding standard that assigns numeric codes (0–127) to text characters. Hex is simply a way of expressing those ASCII code values. For example, the letter 'A' has ASCII code 65, which is 41 in hexadecimal. They are not alternatives—hex is a notation, while ASCII is an encoding scheme.

What is 00 hex in ASCII? ▼

Hex 00 (decimal 0) represents the NUL (Null) character in ASCII. It is a non-printable control character commonly used as a string terminator in programming languages like C and C++.

How to convert hex to ASCII in C? ▼

In C, convert hex to ASCII by parsing each pair of hex characters using strtol() with base 16, then casting the result to char. Loop through the hex string in steps of 2 characters. Alternatively, use sscanf(pair, "%2hhx", &c) to parse each byte directly. See the C code example above for a complete implementation.

What character does hex 41 represent in ASCII? ▼

Hex 41 equals decimal 65 (calculated as 4 × 16 + 1 = 65), which represents the uppercase letter 'A' in ASCII. The uppercase alphabet runs from hex 41 (A) to hex 5A (Z). Lowercase letters start at hex 61 (a) through 7A (z).

Quick Hex ↔ ASCII

Hex Char
20SP (Space)
300
41A
5AZ
61a
7Az

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