How to use HEX2BIN Function in Excel

The Excel Hex2Bin function converts a Hexadecimal (Base 16) number into a Binary (Base 2) number

Syntax: HEX2BIN(number, [places])

The HEX2BIN function syntax has the following arguments:

• Number    Required. The hexadecimal number you want to convert. Number cannot contain more than 10 characters. The most significant bit of number is the sign bit (40th bit from the right). The remaining 9 bits are magnitude bits. Negative numbers are represented using two’s-complement notation.

• Places    Optional. The number of characters to use. If places is omitted, HEX2BIN uses the minimum number of characters necessary. Places is useful for padding the return value with leading 0s (zeros).

Example: Let’s look at some Excel HEX2BIN function examples and explore how to use the HEX2BIN function as a worksheet function in Microsoft Excel:

Syntax:  =HEX2BIN(A2)

Result:

Based on the Excel spreadsheet above, the following HEX2BIN examples would return:

Note:

• Excel only converts to binary numbers of 10-digits or less, restricting the input range to [-512, 511] (decimal).
• The input number must be less than or equal to ten alpha-numeric characters, otherwise the function returns the #NUM! error value.
• The internal (binary) representation of the hexadecimal number uses two’s complement notation. The first bit indicates whether the number is positive or negative, and the other 39 bits indicate the magnitude of the number.