Arbitrary Base Converter

About this calculator

Every positional number system — binary (base 2), octal (base 8), decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16) — represents the same quantity using a different set of digit symbols and place values. This converter generalizes that idea to any base from 2 to 36, using digits 0-9 and letters a-z to represent values up to 35 in a single digit position (base 36 is the practical ceiling since the Latin alphabet only has 26 letters).

It works by converting the input to a decimal intermediate value, then repeatedly dividing by the target base to build up the output digits. It's a handy tool for programmers, computer science students, and puzzle solvers who need conversions beyond the usual binary/octal/hex trio — base 36 in particular shows up in URL shorteners and compact ID encoding schemes.