Text to Morse Code

How Morse timing really works

International Morse code is a timing system, not just dots and dashes. The dot is the base unit; a dash lasts three dots. Gaps matter just as much: one dot-length between the parts of a letter, three between letters, and seven between words. When this tool prints ".... . .-.. .-.. ---" with spaces between letter groups and slashes between words, it is encoding those gaps visually.

The alphabet itself is frequency-optimized. Samuel Morse’s collaborator Alfred Vail reportedly counted the movable type in a printer’s case to estimate letter frequency — which is why E, the most common English letter, is a single dot, while rare letters like Q (--.-) and J (.---) are long.

From printed code to sound and light

To convert this tool’s output to sound, keep the ratio: a short beep for a dot, a beep three times longer for a dash. Radio operators typically train between 15 and 25 words per minute, where a "word" is standardized as PARIS (50 dot-units long). For a flashlight signal, short flash = dot, long flash = dash — the famous SOS (... --- ...) was chosen as a distress call in 1906 precisely because its unbroken rhythm is unmistakable even with sloppy timing.