Unicode Converter
Convert text into various Unicode escape sequences and encodings. Edit any box to convert bidirectionally.
How Unicode Encoding Works: Code Points, Planes & Encodings
Unicode provides a unique numeric code point for every character, regardless of platform, device, application, or language. Standard Unicode code points are written in the format U+XXXX, where XXXX is a hexadecimal integer ranging from 0x0000 to 0x10FFFF across 17 distinct architectural planes.
Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP)
Covers U+0000 to U+FFFF. Holds virtually all modern languages, punctuation, and common technical symbols. Encoded in 1 to 3 bytes in UTF-8.
Supplementary Planes (SMP/SIP)
Spans U+10000 to U+10FFFF. Houses emojis, historic scripts, musical notation, and mathematical symbols. Encoded in 4 bytes in UTF-8 and 2 code units in UTF-16.
UTF-8 vs UTF-16 vs UTF-32
UTF-8 is backward-compatible with 7-bit ASCII and is the dominant standard on the web. UTF-16 is native to JavaScript engines and Windows APIs.
Character Representation Across Encodings
Observe how common symbols and supplementary emojis map across formats:
| Glyph | Code Point | HTML Hex | HTML Dec | JS Escape | CSS Escape |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | U+0041 | A | A | \u0041 | \41 |
| © | U+00A9 | © | © | \u00A9 | \A9 |
| € | U+20AC | € | € | \u20AC | \20AC |
| 🌍 | U+1F30D | 🌍 | 🌍 | \u{1F30D} | \1F30D |
Command-Line & Developer Quick Reference
Inspect and transform Unicode strings programmatically:
# Bash / Terminal: Inspect UTF-8 hex byte dump
printf "€" | xxd -p
# Output: e282ac
# Node.js: Extract full code points (including surrogate pairs)
[..."Hello 🌍"].map(char => "U+" + char.codePointAt(0).toString(16).toUpperCase());
# Output: [ 'U+48', 'U+65', 'U+6C', 'U+6C', 'U+6F', 'U+20', 'U+1F30D' ]
# Python: Convert string to unicode escape notation
"Hello 🌍".encode("unicode-escape").decode("utf-8")
# Output: Hello \U0001f30dFrequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a Unicode Code Point and a UTF-8 byte sequence?+
A Unicode Code Point is an abstract integer assigned to a character (ranging from U+0000 to U+10FFFF). UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding that transforms that code point into one to four 8-bit bytes for transmission and storage. For example, the euro sign (€) is Code Point U+20AC, which encodes to three bytes in UTF-8 (0xE2 0x82 0xAC).
How do JavaScript UTF-16 surrogate pairs work?+
JavaScript strings historically use UTF-16 code units. Characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP, U+0000 to U+FFFF) fit into a single 16-bit code unit. Supplementary characters above U+FFFF (such as emojis like 🌍 or mathematical symbols) require two 16-bit code units known as a surrogate pair: a high surrogate (0xD800-0xDBFF) followed by a low surrogate (0xDC00-0xDFFF).
When should I use HTML hexadecimal entities versus decimal entities?+
Both hexadecimal (€) and decimal (€) entities render identically in all modern web browsers. Hexadecimal entities are generally favored in technical documentation and modern frontend codebases because the hex digits directly mirror standard Unicode notation (U+20AC).
How do CSS Unicode escape sequences handle trailing characters?+
CSS escapes begin with a backslash followed by up to 6 hexadecimal digits (e.g. \20AC). Because the hex number is variable-length, CSS treats the immediate space character after the escape as a terminator, not as visible whitespace. If you intend to render an actual space after an escaped glyph, you must provide two consecutive spaces.
Does this Unicode converter send my text or code to external servers?+
No. The EasyLauncher Unicode Converter processes all text, conversions, and escape calculations 100% locally in your browser sandbox using native JavaScript String and RegExp APIs. Zero data is transmitted, logged, or stored.
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