What this converter does
Sometimes a number has to be written in words. Cheques need the amount in words as well as figures. Legal documents and invoices often show both. Teachers set “write this number in words” exercises, and people simply want to know how to say a long number such as 2,50,00,000 out loud.
This tool writes any number in English words. It handles whole numbers, decimals and negative numbers, and it understands both the international system (thousand, million, billion) and the Indian system (thousand, lakh, crore). It can also add a currency and produce cheque wording.
How to use it
- Type a number into Numbers. Put more numbers on new lines to convert a list.
- Under Write as, choose Words, Currency, Cheque or Ordinal.
- Under Number system, choose International (million) or Indian (lakh, crore).
- For currency and cheques, pick the Currency: US dollars, Indian rupees, euros or British pounds.
- Pick a Letter case: Sentence case, Title Case, UPPERCASE or lowercase.
- Switch Hyphens (twenty-five) and Add “and” (one hundred and five) on or off to match your style.
- Press Copy or Download.
You can type numbers with or without commas, in either style: 118500, 118,500 and 1,18,500 all work. Currency signs such as $ and ₹, and “Rs.” at the start, are ignored.
Examples
All of these were produced by the tool.
| Number | Settings | In words |
|---|---|---|
| 11850 | Words | Eleven thousand eight hundred fifty |
| 80 | Currency, rupees | Eighty rupees |
| 80 | Cheque, rupees, Title Case | Rupees Eighty Only |
| 1,00,000 | Words, Indian | One lakh |
| 100000 | Words, International | One hundred thousand |
| 118500 | Words, Indian | One lakh eighteen thousand five hundred |
| 1500000 | Currency, rupees, Indian | Fifteen lakh rupees |
| 25000000 | Words, Indian | Two crore fifty lakh |
| 25000000 | Words, International | Twenty-five million |
| 1250.75 | Currency, dollars | One thousand two hundred fifty dollars and seventy-five cents |
| 1250.75 | Cheque, dollars, Title Case | One Thousand Two Hundred Fifty and 75/100 Dollars |
| 125000 | Cheque, rupees, Indian, Title Case | Rupees One Lakh Twenty-Five Thousand Only |
| 99.99 | Currency, pounds | Ninety-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence |
| 3.14 | Words | Three point one four |
| -42 | Words | Minus forty-two |
| 21 | Ordinal | Twenty-first |
| 105 | Words, with “and” | One hundred and five |
International and Indian number systems
Both systems use the same words up to ninety-nine thousand. After that they group digits differently.
The international system groups digits in threes: 1,000 is a thousand, 1,000,000 is a million and 1,000,000,000 is a billion. The tool goes all the way up to decillion, which is a 1 followed by 33 zeros.
The Indian system, used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, groups the first three digits and then pairs: 1,00,000 is one lakh and 1,00,00,000 is one crore. Larger amounts are counted in crores, so one thousand crore and one lakh crore are both common.
| Figure | International | Indian |
|---|---|---|
| 100,000 | One hundred thousand | One lakh |
| 1,000,000 | One million | Ten lakh |
| 10,000,000 | Ten million | One crore |
| 1,000,000,000 | One billion | One hundred crore |
Currency and cheque wording
Currency adds the unit after the number and the smaller unit after “and”: dollars and cents, rupees and paise, euros and cents, pounds and pence. Amounts are rounded to two decimal places. One dollar and one cent use the singular, and 1p is “one penny”.
Cheque follows common local practice:
- Indian rupees: “Rupees … Only”, with paise added in words when there are any. Indian banks expect the word “Only” at the end so nothing can be added after it.
- US dollars and euros: the whole amount in words, then “and”, then the cents as a fraction, such as 75/100. Cheques without cents get 00/100.
- British pounds: pounds in words, then pence in words if any, then “only”.
Negative amounts are rejected for cheques, since a cheque cannot be for less than zero.
How the conversion works
The tool reads the digits as text, so very large numbers stay exact. It splits the whole part into groups (threes for international, a three and then pairs for Indian), turns each group into words such as “eight hundred fifty”, and adds the right scale word. Decimals in Words mode are read digit by digit after “point”, the way people say them aloud. Ordinal changes the last word, so twenty-one becomes twenty-first and one hundred becomes one hundredth.
Tips and limits
- Hyphens: standard English hyphenates numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine. Many Indian cheques leave the hyphen out (“Twenty Five”), so switch Hyphens off to match.
- “And”: British and Indian English often say “one hundred and five”. American English usually leaves it out. Use Add “and” to choose.
- Ordinals need whole numbers, and the tool tells you if you enter a decimal.
- Whole numbers up to 36 digits are supported.
- To write numbers in Roman numerals instead, use the Roman numeral date converter. To put a list of numbers in order first, use the number sorter. To read out a reference code letter by letter over the phone, try the phonetic spelling generator.
Other ways to write numbers in words
Microsoft Word: insert a field with Ctrl+F9, type = 11850 \* CardText inside the braces and press F9. \* DollarText adds the cents as a fraction. Word only supports numbers below one million this way.
Excel: there is no built-in function for English words. Many people use a VBA macro called SpellNumber, which Microsoft documents on its support site.
Google Sheets: no built-in function, so an Apps Script or add-on is needed.
Code: Python has the num2words package, which supports Indian English with lang='en_IN'. For a few numbers, pasting them here is quicker.