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Type text to get Morse, or paste Morse to decode it. Letters are separated by spaces and words by a forward slash, which is the standard written convention. Press play to hear it at proper International Morse timing — a dash three times the length of a dot, three dot-lengths between letters and seven between words.
Decoding is deliberately forgiving about what you paste. Typographic characters get substituted for dots and dashes constantly when Morse is copied from web pages or documents, so middle dots, bullets, en dashes and em dashes are all accepted as well as the plain ASCII period and hyphen.
Frequently asked questions
What is SOS in Morse code?
... --- ... — three dots, three dashes, three dots. It was chosen for being unmistakable and easy to send under pressure, not as an abbreviation; the "save our ship" reading came afterwards. In formal use it's sent as one continuous signal with no letter gaps.
How do I read Morse code spacing?
A dot is one unit. A dash is three. The gap between symbols within a letter is one unit, between letters three, and between words seven. Nearly all the difficulty in learning Morse is in the spacing rather than the symbols, which is why the audio playback here uses the correct ratios.
Why does decoding show question marks?
A question mark appears where a sequence doesn't correspond to any Morse character — usually a spacing problem. If the gaps between letters are too small they run together into one long invalid sequence; if too large a single letter splits into fragments.
Can I hear the Morse code?
Yes, press play. It generates a 700 Hz tone in the browser with correct timing — 700 Hz being in the range operators typically use, high enough to cut through noise and low enough to be comfortable. Nothing is downloaded and no audio file is fetched.