Image to Base64

A picture is worth a thousand words, but what if you could encode an image into a string of text? That's where Base64 comes in. Base64 is a way of representing an image as a string of text. It's useful for storing images in databases or transferring them over the internet.

To convert an image to Base64, you first need to know the image's file format. JPEG, PNG, and GIF are the most common formats. Once you see the file format, you can use ImageMagick to encode the image into text.

JPEG:

$ convert image.jpg -base64 image_base64.txt

PNG:

$ convert image.png -base64 image_base64.txt

GIF:
$ convert image.gif -base64 image_base64.txt
Introduction

Image to Base64 is a free online service that converts image to base64 strings. The base64 string can be used as a value for the src attribute of an element or as the content of a data: URL.

What is Base64?

In mathematics and computer science, Base64 is a way of representing binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding. Each Base64 digit represents exactly 6 bits of binary data.

Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs to be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remain intact without modification during transport. Base64 is commonly used in several applications, including email via MIME and storing complex data in XML.

When using Base64 to encode any text information, including email messages, the resulting Base64 text will always be larger than the original file or message. This means that the size of files or messages can increase significantly when encoded using Base64.

How to convert an image to Base64?

Converting image to Base64 is a versatile way to store image data. Images can be converted to Base64 via a URL or a file upload. This article will show you how to convert an image to Base64 Encoding in Javascript.

Why use Base64 Encoding?

The Base64 Content-Transfer-Encoding is designed to represent arbitrary sequences of octets in a form that need not be humanly readable. Octets must be divided into 6-bit groups. All legal U.S.ASCII characters may be defined solely by their 7-bit equivalents. Other octets are represented by the 6-bit group plus an extra leading zero, yielding a 7-bit character code. ( see section 3 for details )

The encoded output stream must be represented in lines of no more than 76 characters each. A CRLF is used to terminate each line, though line folding ( attaching a comment ) is permitted as described in RFC 822 [ 3 ].

Nonprintable characters ( including many control characters ) must also be encoded; these are converted into =XX sequences where XX is the hexadecimal representation of the octet value ( preceding zero suppressed unless required ). Capital letters A - Z correspond to values 10 - 35, and lowercase letters a - z check to values 36 - 61; no embedded spaces or nulls are allowed in base64 data.

Base64 encoding increments by 1/3rd the amount of data that needs to be tend transmitted, plus a little bit for embedded CRLFs, but if requ, ired, padding brings this back down some.

Base64 Encoding vs. other methods

Base64 Encoding iconvertsbinary data to an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding. EachBase64 character represents exactly 6 bits of data. So, to send images or any other multimedia file, you first need to encode it into Base64 Encoding format. In Base64 Encoding, every 4 bytes (or 32 bits) of binary data is converted into five human-readable characters. Base64 Encoding takes 24 input data bits and encodes it in 33 printable characters.

There are many ways to encode files or text as Base64 strings. Some popular techniques include using the URL-safe variant of Base64 Encoding or percent-encoding the entire series except for the characters in the unreserved character set.

When to use Base64 Encoding

There are many reasons to use Base64 Encoding. Perhaps you need to send your image data across a network. Maybe you need to encode binary data that cannot be represented as text. Base64 Encoding is also helpful when yembeddingimage data in a script or HTML file.

In general, Base64 Encoding iencodesbinary data so it can be transported across networks without issue. When Base64 Encoding is used, the resulting data is typically 1/3 larger than the original data. This is due to the way that 3 bytes are encoded as four characters.

Base64 Encoding should not be used for storage since it is not an efficient way to encode data. If storage space is an issue, consider using a different encoding type, such as gzip or compress.

Conclusion

So, you've seen how to convert image to Base64 Encoding and back and how it can be used to embed images in HTML and CSS files. You've also seen how large files can be taughtened up using Gzip compression.