Hexadecimal is a base-16 numeral system that uses 16 symbols to represent numbers: 0-9 for values 0 to 9 and A-F for values 10 to 15. It’s often used in computer programming as a more human-readable representation of binary-coded values. Each digit in a hex number corresponds to a group of four binary digits (bits).
Binary is a base-2 numeral system that uses only two symbols, typically 0 and 1. It’s the fundamental language of computers, as they process data in binary format using electrical on/off states (1s and 0s). Binary numbers can be quite long and are often cumbersome to work with directly. Hexadecimal notation is often used to simplify the representation of binary data.
Use the following table to convert hex digits to binary:
| Hex | Binary |
| 0 | 0000 |
| 1 | 0001 |
| 2 | 0010 |
| 3 | 0011 |
| 4 | 0100 |
| 5 | 0101 |
| 6 | 0110 |
| 7 | 0111 |
| 8 | 1000 |
| 9 | 1001 |
| A | 1010 |
| B | 1011 |
| C | 1100 |
| D | 1101 |
| E | 1110 |
| F | 1111 |
Converting from hexadecimal (hex) to binary involves replacing each hexadecimal digit with its corresponding 4-digit binary representation.
Hexadecimal 16 is equivalent to binary 0001 0110.
Binary 1101 is equivalent to hexadecimal D.
Hexadecimal 141 is equivalent to binary 0001 0100 0001.
Hexadecimal 215 is equivalent to binary 0010 0001 0101.
Hexadecimal 666 is equivalent to binary 0110 0110 0110.