Paste an amount written out in English and read the figure it comes to. Built for checking what somebody else wrote, not for writing it.
Paste an amount written in words — from a check, a contract or an invoice — and read the figure it comes to.
Plain
Cents
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01 · what it does
A words to numbers converter reads a written amount — "one thousand two hundred thirty-four" — and returns the figure it stands for.
It is the mirror of spelling a number out, but it is used for the opposite reason. You spell a number out when you are writing a document. You convert words to numbers when you are reading one, and want to know whether the words and the digits on it agree.
That matters because on a check, a promissory note or a payment clause, the words are the binding version. If the digits say 1,234 and the words say one thousand two hundred forty-four, the amount is the second one. Converting the words back is the fastest way to notice.
The discrepancy is rarely dramatic. Nobody writes "one hundred" next to 10,000 — that gets caught immediately. What slips through is a single wrong word in a long phrase: a "thirty" where the figures say forty, a missing "thousand" in the middle of a seven-figure amount. Both read smoothly, and both change the number.
A words to numbers converter turns that from a careful read into a comparison of two figures, which is a task the eye is much better at.
02 · the hard part
Reading English numbers backwards is mostly mechanical, except for one word. "And" does two completely unrelated jobs, and telling them apart is the whole difficulty.
Connector — drop it
one hundred and twenty-three
123
British usage after the hundreds. Numerically it means nothing.
Separator — keep it
five pounds and one penny
5.01
Divides the units from the minor unit. It is the decimal point.
The rule this converter applies: an "and" is a separator only when a minor unit follows it — cents, pence, or a fraction over one hundred. Every other "and" is dropped. Get that wrong in the obvious direction and "one hundred and twenty-three" comes back as 100.23, which is the kind of error that survives a proofread because it looks plausible.
There is a second word worth knowing about, because it appears on cheques written in Britain, India and much of the Commonwealth: only. It closes the amount line — "One Thousand Only" — and it exists for the same reason as the line drawn through leftover space, which is to stop anything being appended after the words. It carries no numeric value, and this converter drops it.
03 · examples
Every line below was produced by the converter at the top of this page.
| In words | Figure | Why |
|---|---|---|
| one hundred and twenty-three | 123 | The British "and" is dropped, not read as a decimal point. |
| One Hundred Twenty-Three and 45/100 | 123.45 | A check line. The fraction is the cents. |
| five pounds and one penny | 5.01 | Here the "and" separates the units from the pence. |
| one million two hundred thousand | 1,200,000 | Each scale word closes its group. |
| three point one four | 3.14 | After "point" the digits are read one at a time. |
| One Thousand Only | 1,000 | "Only" closes a British or Indian cheque line and carries no value. |
04 · when you need it
▸ checking a check
A check arrives with the amount in words and in figures. If the two disagree, the words are what the bank pays. Reading the words back into a figure is how you confirm they agree before depositing it.
▸ reviewing a contract
Payment clauses spell the amount out. Converting it back is a quick way to catch a clause that says something different from the schedule attached to it.
▸ processing invoices
When an amount arrives as text — in an email, a scanned document, a form field — this turns it into something you can put in a spreadsheet.
▸ proofreading your own writing
Convert your figure to words, then convert those words back. If you do not land on the number you started with, one of the two is wrong.
05 · misreadings
These are the errors a words to numbers converter makes when it treats English as more regular than it is.
— Reading "one hundred and twenty-three" as 100.23
+ 123
The British "and" after the hundreds is a connector, not a decimal point. Software that treats every "and" as a separator gets this wrong constantly.
— Ignoring the "and" in "five pounds and one penny"
+ 5.01
The same word is a real separator here, because a minor unit follows it. Which job it is doing depends on what comes after.
— Reading "One Thousand Only" as an error
+ 1,000
"Only" closes the amount line on British and Indian cheques. It stops anything being added after the words.
— Treating "45/100" as a division
+ 45 cents
On a check the fraction over one hundred is the cents field, not arithmetic.
06 · proofreading
There is a use for this tool that has nothing to do with reading someone else's document. Write your figure, convert it to words, then paste those words back in here. If you do not land on the number you started with, something in between is wrong.
It sounds redundant, and on a small number it is. On one million two hundred thirty-four thousand five hundred sixty-seven it is not: a missing "thousand" in the middle of that phrase is almost invisible to a reader and changes the amount by a factor of a thousand.
The two converters on this site are independent of each other — different code, different tests — so a round trip is a real check rather than the same assumption applied twice.
07 · questions
Q01
Cardinal numbers written out in English, up to the trillions, with or without hyphens, in any capitalisation. It also reads check lines with the cents as a fraction, amounts with currency words, the British "and", and decimals introduced by "point".
Q02
Yes, and it returns 123, not 100.23. The "and" that British usage puts after the hundreds is a connector with no numeric value. The converter only treats "and" as a separator when a minor unit follows it, as in "five pounds and one penny".
Q03
Yes. Paste something like "One Hundred Twenty-Three and 45/100" and you get 123.45. The fraction over one hundred is read as the cents, which is what it means on a check.
Q04
They are ignored for the figure but respected for the structure. "One hundred dollars" returns 100; "five pounds and one penny" returns 5.01, because "penny" tells the converter that the preceding "and" is a separator.
Q05
Some. "Fourty" is accepted, because it is by far the most common misspelling of forty and rejecting it would be unhelpful. Words it does not recognise end the number rather than being guessed at — a silent guess on an amount is worse than a clear stop.
Q06
The grouped form with commas is what you compare against the digits printed on the document. The plain form is what you paste into a spreadsheet or a form field, where commas would break the value.
Q07
No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser. That matters here more than on most tools, because the text you paste is usually taken from a contract or a check that has not been settled yet.
Q08
The number to words converter on the home page does that, including the check format with the cents over one hundred. Running a figure through both in turn is a decent way to proofread an amount.
On the documents where amounts get written twice, the words win. Converting them back to a figure takes a second and settles whether the two halves of the document agree.