About Text ↔ Hex

Encode UTF-8 text to hexadecimal bytes — or decode hex back to text. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Encoding collection.

Use Cases

• Security analysts inspecting hex-encoded payloads in logs
• Firmware developers debugging raw memory dump values
• Web developers converting color codes between formats
• Network engineers reading hex-encoded packet captures

Tips

• Each byte displays as exactly two hex characters
• Hex is ideal for inspecting non-printable characters
• Decode mode converts hex strings back to readable UTF-8

Fun Facts

• Hexadecimal notation became popular in computing in the 1960s because it maps perfectly to 4-bit nibbles — each hex digit represents exactly 4 binary bits.
• IBM System/360, released in 1964, was one of the first computer architectures to standardize hexadecimal display in memory dumps, replacing octal.
• HTML color codes (#FF5733) use hexadecimal because 256 shades per channel (00-FF) map cleanly to one byte, giving 16.7 million possible colors.

FAQ

What encoding?

UTF-8 by default — each character becomes its byte sequence, each byte becomes 2 hex digits. ASCII is 1:1; emoji becomes 4 bytes (8 hex chars).

Uppercase or lowercase?

Configurable — uppercase (FF) or lowercase (ff). Some contexts (HTTP headers) prefer one over the other; most are case-insensitive.

Can I decode back?

Yes — paste hex, get text. Whitespace between hex bytes is tolerated.

What about 0x prefix?

Optional — toggle 'include 0x prefix'. C-style literals have it; pure hex dumps usually don't.