Unicode to UTF-32

UTF-32 Overview

UTF-32 is a fixed-length Unicode encoding: each code point is represented by exactly 4 bytes (32 bits), in a one-to-one mapping with Unicode code points. It allows simple random access but uses more space, so it is less common for storage or transmission.

This tool converts between Unicode characters, code points, and UTF-32 (big-endian or little-endian), for learning encoding or when working with low-level UTF-32 data.

How to Use

Character / Code Point to UTF-32

Enter a Unicode character or code point (e.g. U+4E2D); the tool shows its UTF-32 hex representation. You can choose big-endian (BE) or little-endian (LE) byte order.

UTF-32 to Character

Enter a 4-byte UTF-32 hex value (e.g. 00004E2D); the tool decodes and displays the corresponding Unicode character and code point for verification or inspection.

Multiple Characters and BOM

For multiple characters, the tool shows UTF-32 encoding per character. For file formats, note that UTF-32 may use a BOM (e.g. 00 00 FE FF for big-endian).

FAQ

How does UTF-32 differ from UTF-8 and UTF-16?

UTF-8 is variable-length and compact with ASCII compatibility; UTF-16 is often 2 bytes per character (4 for some). UTF-32 uses exactly 4 bytes per character for easy indexing but is larger—more common in internal processing than in storage or transport.

Why do we need big-endian vs little-endian?

Multi-byte encodings can be stored with different byte orders: big-endian has the high byte first, little-endian the low byte first. Systems or protocols choose one; conversions must be consistent.

How are characters beyond the BMP represented in UTF-32?

In UTF-32 every code point is 4 bytes, including U+10000 and above (supplementary planes). Unlike UTF-16 surrogates, no special pairing is needed.