But we will explain everything you need to know about ASCII code in the next few paragraphs. What is it, what is it for or how are the different commands that compose it and that allow the communication through these bit strings. In addition, you can use it in programs on your computer such as Excel and it will be enough to use the codes that you can read at the end of these lines.
What is it?
ASCII code is an acronym for American Standard Code of Information Interchange or, translated, American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It was created in the sixties, as we will see in the next few paragraphs, and it is a character encoding system that uses seven bits to represent the different characters. The purpose of the ASCII code is to translate letters and symbols into numbers.
The ASCII code was born in 1961 and was an IBM engineer the one in charge of this. But its creation is generalized as years later, starting in 1963, where it is considered that the American Standards Committee (later ANSI) made it official. In addition, it has been changing and years later the control codes were modified and it became the US-ASCII code. In this 1967 version, lower case letters were added and it was not the only update of the same ino that in 1986. Currently it uses control characters, special characters …
Groups and Characters: How It Works
The ASCII code has 128 characters. Each character corresponds to a sequence of seven digits between 0 and 1, a code based on seven bits. We find control characters, special characters, numbers (or figures) and letters. They are also divided between printable or not: the non-printable are those of control or command that execute actions and the printable ones are those corresponding to numbers, letters and special characters or punctuation marks, exclamations, etc.
Although you can read the full list of ASCII code then there are four major groups beyond the later “extended” version. As we have said, on the one hand the printables (numbers, figures and symbols) and on the other the control or command ones, which are 32 in total.
- Control or command characters
The control or command characters are the non-printable ones and those used to send commands to the computer, as the name implies. That is, they are not signs or symbols as such, but rather give orders. For example, characters that order a line break, go back, activate or deactivate capitalization, advance the page or delete. They are all the characters that go from 1 to 31 in addition to character 127 that would allow us to erase or suppress whatever we want.
- Punctuation or special characters
There is another group of characters that do not correspond to letters or numbers, but rather punctuation. That is, you put an exclamation point or a + sign or a parenthesis. These are those that go from 32 to 47, from 58 to 63, from 91 to 96 and from 123 to 126 where the ~ symbol would be. Any of the signs that we use in our day to day would be collected here: points, commas, parentheses, brackets, hash marks, at, quotation marks or different accents in addition to exclamation marks or question marks and others such as additions, subtractions.
- Characters of numbers or figures
As the name suggests, they translate as numbers or figures concrete. They are those that go from 48 to 57 with numbers from 0 to 9.
They are the ones that go from 65 to 90 to represent capital letters and from 97 to 122 to represent letters lowercase of the alphabet. There are a series of codes for the letters represented in uppercase from A to Z and others for lowercase from A to Z but, logically, it is not the same.
How to insert them
How do we insert it in Microsoft and in the different programs? From the help page of Outlook and Excel we can find the solution. As explained from this website, to insert an ASCII character we simply have to keep holding down the ALT key on your computer while writing the code corresponding character, which you can consult in the complete list that we leave you below.
This is simple but we must always have the codes at hand unless you know them by heart. As an example, you can insert the degree symbol pressing ALT + 0176 on the numeric keypad of your computer. Keep in mind that it will only work if you use the numeric keyboard of the computer and not the row of numbers that is at the top of it. In this case the process would not work. In addition, they add the following: Make sure the NUM LOCK key is on if your keyboard requires it for you to type numbers on the numeric keypad.
Full listing
All ASCII characters and their meanings
- 00 = Null(Null character)
- 01 = SOH(Start of header)
- 02 = STX(Beginning of text)
- 03 = ETXEnd of text)
- 04 = EOT(End of transmission)
- 05 = ENQ(Query)
- 06 = ACK(Acknowledgment of receipt)
- 07 = BEL(Doorbell)
- 08 = BS(Recoil)
- 09 = HT(Horizontal tab)
- 10 = LF(Line break)
- 11 = VT(Vertical tab)
- 12 = FF(Page advance)
- 13 = CR(Car return)
- 14 = SW(Disable uppercase)
- 15 = YES(Activate uppercase)
- 16 = DLE(Data link escape)
- 17 = DC1
- 18 = DC2
- 19 = DC3
- 20 = DC4
- 21 = NAK(Negative acknowledgment)
- 22 = SYN(Wait sync)
- 23 = ETB(End of transmission block)
- 24 = DOG(Cancel)
- 25 = EM(End of middle)
- 26 = SUB (Substitution)
- 27 = ESC (Escape)
- 28 = FS (File Separator)
- 29 = GS (Group separator)
- 30 = RS (Record Separator)
- 31 = US (Unit separator
- 127 = DEL Delete)
Symbol or special characters
- 32 = space (Blank space)
- 33 = !
- 34 = «
- 35 = #
- 36 = $
- 37 = % (Percent sign)
- 38 = &
- 39 = ‘(Single quotes)
- 40 = ((Opens parentheses)
- 41 = )(Close parentheses)
- 42 = *
- 43 = +
- 44 = ,
- 45 = –
- 46 = .
- 47 = /
- 58 =:
- 59 =;
- 60 = <
- 61 = =
- 62 =>
- 63 =?
- 64 = @
- 91 = [
- 92 =
- 93 = ]
- 94 = ^
- 95 = _
- 96 = `
- 123 = {
- 124 = |
- 125 =}
- 126 = ~
Numeric characters
- 48 = 0
- 49 = 1
- 50 = 2
- 51 = 3
- 52 = 4
- 53 = 5
- 54 = 6
- 55 = 7
- 56 = 8
- 57 = 9
Uppercase and lowercase letters
- 65 = TO
- 66 = B
- 67 = C
- 68 = D
- 69 = AND
- 70 = F
- 71 = G
- 72 = H
- 73 = I
- 74 = J
- 75 = K
- 76 = L
- 77 = M
- 78 = N
- 79 = OR
- 80 = P
- 81 = Q
- 82 = R
- 83 = S
- 84 = T
- 85 = OR
- 86 = V
- 87 = W
- 88 = X
- 89 = AND
- 90 = Z
- 97 = to
- 98 = b
- 99 = c
- 100 = d
- 101 = and
- 102 = F
- 103 = g
- 104 = h
- 105 = i
- 106 = j
- 107 = k
- 108 = l
- 109 = m
- 110 = n
- 111 = or
- 112 = p
- 113 = what
- 114 = r
- 115 = s
- 116 = t
- 117 = or
- 118 = v
- 119 = w
- 120 = x
- 121 = and
- 122 = z