BIN2DEC in Zoho Sheet: Convert Ten-Bit Binary to Decimal

=BIN2DEC(binary_number)

There is no radix parameter: this function always interprets input as binary. There is no optional digit-width argument or switch to return a binary string. For arbitrary positional bases from 2 to 36, use DECIMAL instead, but do not treat unsigned DECIMAL as identical to signed ten-bit BIN2DEC for all inputs. Zoho’s help does not document broad string-coercion rules or every boundary case; where a binary field is mission-critical, test the exact input in a real Zoho worksheet. Zoho BIN2DEC syntax.

Zoho’s own example table displays =BIN2DEC(A2) → -333, =BIN2DEC(A3) → 42, and =BIN2DEC(1111) → 15, but it does not display the referenced contents of A2 and A3 as plain text in the article. Therefore, we do not claim that Zoho itself documents the precise binary input 1010110011. That string is inferred mathematically: 1024−333 = 691, and 691 in 10-bit binary is 1010110011. A 10-bit two’s-complement decoder maps it to 691−1024 = -333. Zoho BIN2DEC examples.

Reproduce with a small worksheet

In cell A1 type Binary text; B1 BIN2DEC result; C1 Independent arithmetic. In A2 enter the text 101010, in A3 the text 0000001010, and in A4 the text 1010110011. Enter =BIN2DEC(A2) in B2 and fill down. Independently expected B2=42 and B3=10. For the third input, the ten-bit signed-convention expectation is -333, pending Zoho-native verification. In C2 type =32+8+2 for 42, C3 =8+2 for 10, and C4 =691-1024 for -333. This deliberately separates direct formula execution (not performed here) from independent arithmetic.

Keep A2:A4 as text, not numbers, especially when preserving leading zeros. If importing from CSV, verify A3 still has ten characters. A spreadsheet may remove leading zeroes during automatic type inference; if that happens, the input field you are testing is no longer the ten-character string you expected.

A positive unsigned six-bit representation such as 101010 equals 1×32 + 1×8 + 1×2 = 42. A signed ten-bit field is a different interpretive format. In mathematical two’s-complement notation, the leading 1 in a full ten-bit word contributes a negative weight of -512, while the other nine positions contribute positive weights 256 through 1. For 1010110011, that arithmetic equals -512 + 128 + 32 + 16 + 2 + 1 = -333.

This explanatory bit weighting is independent computer-number theory. Zoho’s official help establishes that it can return a negative example with at most ten binary digits, but does not explicitly define the full encoding algorithm, what happens when the input has leading zeros or is shorter than ten digits, or whether particular numeric-versus-text coercions differ. Microsoft explicitly describes Excel’s 10-bit two’s-complement BIN2DEC convention; it is useful context but not primary Zoho evidence. Zoho BIN2DEC; Microsoft Excel BIN2DEC.

Short binary status codes. Suppose an instrument logs a six-character code such as 001101. Treat the source as text and decode with =BIN2DEC(A2); independently, the sum 8 + 4 + 1 is 13. The decimal can be useful for sorting and threshold comparisons, but if individual bits represent separate alarms you still need separate bit-position analysis. BIN2DEC only converts the overall value; it does not assign business meaning to any bit.

Comparing representations. A decimal 42 may appear in binary as 101010 or as a padded string 0000101010. The positional arithmetic is the same for nonnegative values, but the stored text length differs. Define a source-field width contract before using leading zeros as a validation signal.

Round trip with DEC2BIN. Zoho documents DEC2BIN for converting a decimal to binary within a stated input range. For a small positive integer, =BIN2DEC(DEC2BIN(42)) is mathematically expected to return 42. Do not generalize round-trip success to every negative value, every fractional value, or every deliberately padded output. In particular, DEC2BIN examples permit a 12-character padded output while BIN2DEC explicitly limits the input to ten digits: such a result cannot be assumed to decode through BIN2DEC unchanged.

Zoho’s error table lists several common sheet-wide errors; only the ten-character and binary-digit restrictions are explicit BIN2DEC-specific #NUM! cases. Official Zoho BIN2DEC error table.

The vendor reference describes public English Zoho Sheet cloud behavior, but does not state the minimum release, first-supported version, account tier, numeric precision edge cases or per-mobile-app behavior of BIN2DEC. Zoho separately publishes generic web insertion, Android, and iOS formula instructions. None of those general guides proves function-level parity on every device or locale.

The semicolon-free one-argument syntax avoids separator ambiguity here, though nested or other formulas may vary with locale settings; Zoho documents workbook date, decimal and grouping controls separately. Locale settings. Related official functions: BASE, DECIMAL, and DEC2BIN. Every linked first-party page was checked 2026-10-13. No native Zoho or Excel execution was done.