Number to Words
Turn a figure into written words, or written words back into a figure. Three styles are included because they genuinely differ: American, British with its “and”, and the cheque form where the words are the legally binding amount.
Number to wordsType a number, or type the words to convert them back
Writing a cheque? The words are the legally binding amount. If the figures and the words disagree, the words win in most jurisdictions. The and 00/100 ending is the convention that stops anyone adding to the number afterwards, which is why it is there rather than a plain decimal.
Common questions
- Is it “one hundred one” or “one hundred and one”?
- Both, depending on where you are. American usage omits the “and” in a whole number, so 101 is one hundred one. British usage includes it: one hundred and one. Neither is wrong, but mixing them in a formal document looks careless, which is why the style is a deliberate choice here.
- How should I write the amount on a cheque?
- Write the words for the whole amount, then the cents as a fraction over 100, for example One thousand two hundred thirty-four dollars and 56/100. The fraction form makes it hard to alter afterwards. If the words and the figures disagree, the words are what most jurisdictions treat as binding, so they are worth getting right.
- When is a hyphen used?
- In compound numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine: forty-two, seventy-six. Hundreds, thousands and millions are not hyphenated. The rule is small but it is the most common mistake in handwritten amounts.
- What about very large numbers?
- Short scale is used, the convention in the United States, modern British usage and finance everywhere, so a billion is a thousand million. The tool covers up to quintillions and will tell you when a number is too large to represent exactly rather than silently rounding it.
- Can it read words back into a number?
- Yes, and the direction is detected. Type “two million five hundred thousand” and you get 2,500,000. It accepts hyphens, commas and an optional “and”, which covers how people actually write amounts out.
- Is anything sent to a server?
- No. The conversion runs in your browser, which is worth knowing given the most common use is a payment amount.
Exact for whole numbers up to the quadrillions, using short-scale English. Where a value exceeds what can be named unambiguously the tool says so rather than producing an invented scale word.