🍂 Buy your course today and get access throughout 2025 🏷️ Course catalog

Excel challenge – Binary to text

Excel challenge – Binary to text

Your cryptic uncle has sent you a text message in binary and now you need to convert it back to a readable format.

First, you need to convert to a decimal value. To convert from binary to decimal we use the following formula:

decimal = d0×20 + d1×21 + d2×22 + …

The decimal number is equal to the sum of binary digits (dn) times their power of 2 (2n)


Example:

Find the decimal value of 111001

1⋅25+1⋅24+1⋅23+0⋅22+0⋅21+1⋅20 = 57

Then, use the conversion table to convert the decimal number to a character.

Write a formula in column G that converts the binary string into a character. The message can then be read from top to bottom.

Post your solution in the comments! 🙂

Our solution:

=XLOOKUP(A3*2^5+B3*2^4+C3*2^3+D3*2^2+E3*2^1+F3*2^0;$J$3:$J$29;$I$3:$I$29)


4 thoughts on “Excel challenge – Binary to text

  1. =XLOOKUP(SUMPRODUCT(A3:F3;2^(6-COLUMN(A3:F3)));J:J;I:I)

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

More blog posts

Tired of Googling?
Get the best Excel tips every week. Subscribe to our newsletter.

About the author

Emil har jobbat på Learnesy som produktutvecklare i flera år och ligger bakom flera av Learnesys kurser. Han har en utbildning inom datavetenskap med ett stort intresse för det analytiska och teoretiska. Utöver Finska och Svenska snackar Emil även flytande Excelfunktioner!