Type a number, a date or a Roman numeral, and it turns into the other as you type.
How it looks
Classic serif
Engraved capitals
Thin sans
Typewriter
Type the date the way you write it, 24.05.1994 or 05/24/1994 or May 24, 1994, and each part is converted on its own: XXIV.V.MCMXCIV. The order stays as you typed it, so a European date stays day first and an American date stays month first. Pick the order you will read it in, because nobody else will know which one it is.
Choose dots, middle dots, dashes or spaces between the parts, and see the date in four kinds of lettering below the result before you take it to the tattoo artist. Type a two-digit year, 94, and it stays short: XCIV.
Type a Roman numeral, or a whole date in Roman numerals, and get the number back. If it is not written the standard way, you are told what it should be. Paste a list, one per line, and every line is checked. These are the mistakes people make most:
Seven letters do all the work: I is 1, V is 5, X is 10, L is 50, C is 100, D is 500 and M is 1,000. Write the biggest first and add as you go: MDCLXVI is 1,666.
A smaller letter in front of a bigger one is taken away, but only in six pairs: IV (4), IX (9), XL (40), XC (90), CD (400) and CM (900). No letter is repeated more than three times, and V, L and D are never repeated. There is no zero. Above 3,999 a bar over a letter multiplies it by a thousand, so V̅ is 5,000.
Every number from 1 to 100. The pattern repeats every ten: 4 and 9 are written by putting I before V and X, and 40 and 90 by putting X before L and C.
From 4,000 a bar over a letter multiplies it by a thousand, because M can only be repeated three times.
Birth years, wedding years and the years on buildings and film credits, from 1950 to 2035.
Convert the day, the month and the year one at a time and keep them in the order you write dates: 24 May 1994 is XXIV.V.MCMXCIV, and May 24, 1994 is V.XXIV.MCMXCIV. Type the date in the box the way you normally write it and the order is kept for you. Leading zeros have no Roman form, so 05 is simply V.
Any of them is correct, since the Romans did not write dates this way at all. Dots (XXIV.V.MCMXCIV) are the most common, middle dots (XXIV·V·MCMXCIV) look the most classical, and spaces read cleanest in a thin font. What matters more is the order: a day-first and a month-first date look the same in Roman numerals, so choose the one you and the people around you read naturally.
MMXXVI: MM for 2,000, XX for 20 and VI for 6. 2025 is MMXXV and 2027 is MMXXVII. Years in the 1900s start with MCM, so 1994 is MCMXCIV and 1999 is MCMXCIX.
IV is the standard form, and the one to use for a date or a tattoo. IIII is not wrong on a clock face, where it has been the custom for centuries, partly because it balances the VIII on the other side of the dial. The converter reads IIII as 4 and says that IV is the standard form.
Only six subtractions are allowed: I before V and X, X before L and C, and C before D and M. A letter is taken away only from one of the next two letters up, so I cannot come before C. 99 is therefore 90 plus 9, XC plus IX: XCIX. The same rule makes 1999 MCMXCIX rather than MIM.
No. The Romans counted things, and had no need to write nothing as a number. Some medieval scholars wrote N, for nulla, in tables of figures, but it was never part of the numeral system, so 0 cannot be converted.
With a bar over the letters, which multiplies them by a thousand: V̅ is 5,000, X̅ is 10,000 and M̅ is a million. 4,000 is I̅V̅ and 4,500 is I̅V̅D. The converter writes the bar with a combining overline character, so it copies into most apps, though some fonts draw it a little off-centre.