ASCII

1. Short for American Standard Code for Information Interexchange, ASCII is an industry standard, which assigns letters, numbers, and other characters within the 256 slots available in the 8-bit code.

The ASCII table is divided in 3 different sections.

  • Non printable, system codes between 0 and 31.
  • Lower ASCII, between 32 and 127. This table originates from the older, American systems, which worked on 7-bit character tables.
  • Higher ASCII, between 128 and 255. This portion is programmable; characters are based on the language of your operating system or program you are using. Foreign letters are also placed in this section.

Standard or Lower ASCII characters and codes

Dec Char Dec Char Dec Char Dec Char Dec Char Dec Char
33 ! 49 1 65 A 81 Q 97 a 113 q
34 " 50 2 66 B 82 R 98 b 114 r
35 # 51 3 67 C 83 S 99 c 115 s
36 $ 52 4 68 D 84 T 100 d 116 t
37 % 53 5 69 E 85 U 101 e 117 u
38 & 54 6 70 F 86 V 102 f 118 v
39 ' 55 7 71 G 87 W 103 g 119 w
40 ( 56 8 72 H 88 X 104 h 120 x
41 ) 57 9 73 I 89 Y 105 i 121 y
42 * 58 : 74 J 90 Z 106 j 122 z
43 + 59 ; 75 K 91 [ 107 k 123 {
44 , 60 < 76 L 92 \ 108 l 124 |
45 - 61 = 77 M 93 ] 109 m 125 }
46 . 62 > 78 N 94 ^ 110 n 126 ~
47 / 63 ? 79 O 95 _ 111 o 127 _
48 0 64 @ 80 P 96 ` 112 p

Extended ASCII uses eight instead of seven bits, which adds 128 additional characters. This gives extended ASCII the ability for extra characters, such as special symbols, foreign language letters, and drawing characters as shown below.

Extended or Higher ASCII characters and codes

Higher ASCII chart

Convert text into ASCII

Use the below convert tool to convert any text into their Decimal ASCII values.


2. While in a ftp session, ascii is also a command to switch to ascii file transfer mode. See the how to use ftp help page for information about ascii and other FTP commands.

Also see: ASCII Art, ASCII printer, Character code, Codepage, EBCDIC, Programming definitions, Typography definitions, Unicode