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Convert String to Binary - Python

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025
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Converting a string to binary means changing each character in the string to its binary form using its character code (like ASCII).

For Example:

String: "Hi"

Step 1: Convert characters to ASCII

H → 72
i → 105

Step 2: Convert ASCII to Binary

72 → 01001000
105 → 01101001

Final Binary: 01001000 01101001

Let's explore different ways to convert string to binary.

Using join() + ord() + format()

This method converts a string to binary by:

  • ord(char) gets ASCII number of each character
  • format(num, '08b') converts that number to 8-bit binary
  • join() joins all binary pieces into one string
Python 
txt = "Gfg"
b = ''.join(format(ord(char), '08b') for char in txt)
print(b)

Output
010001110110011001100111

Explanation: converts each character in txt to its 8-bit binary form using ord() and format() then joins them into one binary string using join().

Using join() + bytearray() + format()

This method converts a string to binary by:

  • bytearray() convert whole string into bytes (numbers)
  • format() convert each byte to 8-bit binary
  • join() combine all binary values into one string
Python 
txt = "Gfg"
b = ''.join(format(b, '08b') for b in bytearray(txt, 'utf-8'))
print(b)

Output
010001110110011001100111

Explanation: converts each character in txt to its 8-bit binary form using bytearray() and format() then joins them into one binary string.

Using join() + bin() + zfill() 

This method converts a string to binary by:

  • ord() get each character’s ASCII value
  • bin() convert it to binary (removes the '0b' prefix)
  • zfill(8) make sure each binary number is 8 bits
  • join() combine all binary values into one string
Python 
txt = "Gfg"
b = ''.join(bin(ord(c))[2:].zfill(8) for c in txt)
print(b)

Output
010001110110011001100111

Explanation: converts each character of txt to its 8-bit binary form using ord(), bin() and zfill(8) then joins them into one binary string.

Using binascii module

binascii module can convert a string to binary by first encoding it to hexadecimal using hexlify() then converting that hex value to binary using bin().

Python 
import binascii

txt = "Gfg"
h = binascii.hexlify(txt.encode())
b = bin(int(h, 16))[2:].zfill(8 * len(txt))
print(b)

Output
010001110110011001100111

Explanation:

  • text.encode() converts string to bytes and binascii.hexlify() turns those bytes into a hexadecimal string
  • bin(int(..., 16))[2:] converts the hex string to binary, removing the '0b' prefix
  • zfill() ensures the binary string is properly padded to 8 bits per character

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