Tools · Codes and encodings
Letters to numbers (A1Z26)
Letter positions: A=1, B=2… and back, for Latin and the 33-letter Russian alphabet.
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How to use it
Type a word and you get the positions of its letters in the alphabet. Paste numbers and you get the letters. The tool tells the two apart by itself: digits and separators only means numbers to letters, anything with letters means letters to numbers. The “⇅” button swaps the boxes.
Latin runs from a = 1 to z = 26: “dog” is 4-15-7 and “key” is 11-5-25. The Russian alphabet is counted in full, with ё in seventh place, from а = 1 to я = 33. The strip at the bottom shows the whole alphabet with its numbers and highlights the letters you used.
How the numbers can be written
Puzzles use three common styles and the tool reads them all: dashes (8-9), spaces (8 9) and commas (8, 9). When the letters inside a word are joined by dashes, a space separates words. Without dashes every number is one letter, and words are separated by a slash, a line break or a wide gap. The “Between letters” switch picks how the result is written.
English or Russian?
Numbers alone don’t say. 3-1-20 is “cat” in English but a different word in Russian. If any number is above 26, the alphabet must be Russian and the tool switches by itself. Otherwise it reads in the page’s language and shows the other reading underneath; pick the one that makes words, or set the alphabet yourself.
Other ways of counting
Some puzzles count from zero (a = 0), the way programmers do, and some count from the end (z = 1). The “Counting” switch handles both. If question marks appear instead of letters, the numbers fall outside the alphabet: try another way of counting.
Questions
Is A1Z26 a cipher?
More of a code: there is no key and everyone uses the same table. Letter numbers are often the first step of a puzzle: once letters are numbers, you can shift them, add them or encrypt them further. Shifting the numbers is already a Caesar cipher, the subject of the first lesson.
Why is it called A1Z26?
The name simply spells out the rule: A is 1, Z is 26. Puzzle hunters and geocachers use it as a short label.
Does my text go anywhere?
No, everything is computed in your browser.