Text to Unicode
ConverterConvert text to Unicode escape sequences (\uXXXX) and back for UTF-16. Ideal for debugging encoded strings and inspecting raw code points in one pass.
Related Tools
About Text to Unicode
Working with emoji, rare characters, or multilingual strings often means needing a character's Unicode code point, or turning an escape like \u4f60 back into text. This tool converts text to and from Unicode code points (U+XXXX and various escape forms) locally in your browser, handling characters beyond the basic plane such as emoji. Type the Chinese character 你 and you will see code point U+4F60, UTF-8 bytes E4 BD A0, and its CJK Unified Ideographs block.
How to Use
- Open the Text to Unicode tool
- Select the source and target formats
- Adjust the output options as needed
- Click the Convert button; results appear in real time
- Copy or export the result
Use Cases
- Look up code points — See a character's U+ code point to confirm it is the intended one.
- Unescape sequences — Turn \uXXXX escapes in source code back into readable text to review content.
- Generate escapes — Convert a string with special characters into \u escapes to embed safely in JSON or code.
- Spot lookalikes — Use code points to distinguish similar glyphs (full-width vs half-width) and catch input traps.
- Diagnose mojibake — Read code points to judge if a character was mis-encoded and trace garbled text.
- Build regex patterns — Get the code point of a character to build a precise Unicode range for a regex pattern.
- Verify normalization — Compare NFC and NFD code point sequences to confirm a string is in the expected normalization form.
FAQ
Why does an emoji sometimes show two values?
Characters above U+FFFF are represented by a surrogate pair in UTF-16. The tool shows the true code point and converts correctly between code points and surrogate pairs.
Which escape formats are supported?
Common \\uXXXX (four hex digits) and U+XXXX notation; for high code points, a brace-extended form is also supported, which helps with emoji.
How are combining characters handled?
They may consist of several code points. The tool expands the actual sequence, so one visible glyph can map to multiple U+ values — this is normal.
Are code points decimal or hex?
Unicode code points are conventionally hexadecimal with a U+ prefix. The tool outputs hex by default, matching the standard.
I want 0/1 binary instead.
This gives character code points; for a UTF-8 byte-based binary bit string, use our text to binary tool.