ITBox
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Unicode Converter

Convert text to/from \uXXXX, ES6, &#x;, &# and \xHH escapes, with full surrogate-pair and astral code-point support.

Style
Text input
0 chars · 1 lines
Escaped output
0 chars · 1 lines

How to use

Purpose

Online Unicode converter that translates any character (CJK, Emoji, special symbols) to Unicode code points (U+XXXX), JavaScript escapes (\uXXXX), HTML entities (&#xXXXX;), UTF-8 byte sequences, and UTF-16 byte sequences. Reverse-decodes \u4e2d\u6587-style escapes back to readable text. Common for debugging encoded JSON, generating Emoji code points, JavaScript string literal encoding, and HTML compatibility. All conversion runs locally.

Steps

  1. Paste or type a string on the left (with CJK / Emoji / any character)
  2. Switch display on the right: Unicode code point (U+4E2D), JS escape (\u4e2d), HTML entity (中), UTF-8 hex, UTF-16 hex
  3. Reverse: paste \u4e2d\u6587 to auto-decode as 中文
  4. Emoji mode: correctly handles surrogate pairs (🎉 = \uD83C\uDF89)
  5. Toggle decimal / hexadecimal display
  6. Case: U+4E2D (uppercase default) or u+4e2d (lowercase)
  7. Batch processing: one string per line

FAQ

Why do Emoji need two \u escapes in JS strings?
Characters outside BMP (most Emoji, rare CJK, extended Latin) have code points above 0xFFFF, requiring a UTF-16 surrogate pair. e.g. 🎉 (U+1F389) = \uD83C\uDF89. Modern JS supports \u{1F389} (ES2015+) or just writing the literal Emoji (clearest).
Is Unicode the same as UTF-8?
No. Unicode is the character set (assigning U+XXXX to each character). UTF-8 is one encoding (mapping code points to bytes). The character "中": Unicode code point U+4E2D, UTF-8 bytes E4 B8 AD, UTF-16 bytes 4E 2D.
Why is my JSON full of \u escapes for Chinese?
Python json.dumps defaults to ensure_ascii=True, escaping all non-ASCII. Java ObjectMapper, Go json.Marshal behave similarly. ASCII-only JSON is safer for transport (no charset negotiation), but unreadable. Decode here to restore.
Do I need 中 HTML entities for Chinese?
Usually no. Modern HTML5 uses UTF-8 — write 中 directly. You need entities when: 1) the doc charset is GBK / ISO-8859-1; 2) HTML email (some clients have weak charset negotiation); 3) you want to be explicit about an invisible character (zero-width space).
Rare or ancient CJK characters do not display — what to do?
Some rare characters live in Unicode Plane B/C/D (U+20000+) and system fonts may not cover them. The tool emits the code point so you can check font support. Common workarounds: replace with images, use SVG glyphs, or ensure users have an extended-coverage font (e.g. Source Han Sans).

Use cases

  • Triage JSON Chinese encoding: decode \u escapes back to readable text
  • Generate JS string literals: literals with Emoji or special chars portable across runtimes
  • HTML email compatibility: convert CJK to HTML entities for legacy clients
  • Unicode character lookup: reverse Emoji to U+XXXX code points
  • Legacy system bridges: round-trip strings between GBK / GB2312 and Unicode

Use cases

JSON Chinese decode, JS Emoji literals, HTML email compatibility, Emoji lookup, GBK bridges. Frontend, backend, email marketing, localization engineers. Correct surrogate-pair handling, UTF-8/UTF-16 byte display, and multi-format conversion are the differentiators.