ROT13/ROT5 Combo Tool

Paste text to apply the ROT13/ROT5 transform.

How it is calculated

Each character is handled on its own. A letter from A to Z or a to z moves 13 places along the 26-letter alphabet and wraps around, keeping its case: (index + 13) mod 26. A digit from 0 to 9 moves 5 places along the ten digits and wraps: (digit + 5) mod 10. Everything else, such as spaces, punctuation and symbols, is copied unchanged. Accented letters and other non-English characters, for example the é in café, are also left as they are, because only the 26 basic Latin letters are rotated. Since 13 + 13 = 26 and 5 + 5 = 10, running the output through the tool again gives back the original text. This is a puzzle trick, not encryption.

Worked example

Take the text Room 204 at 9pm. The letters shift by 13: R becomes E, o becomes b, o becomes b and m becomes z, giving Ebbz. In the digits, 2 becomes 7, 0 becomes 5 and 4 becomes 9, so 204 turns into 759. Then a and t become n and g, the 9 becomes 4, and p and m become c and z. The result is Ebbz 759 ng 4cz. Pasting that back into the tool restores the original.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Treating the output as secure. Anyone can reverse it in a second, so never use it to protect a password or personal data.
  • Expecting accented or non-Latin letters to change. Letters such as é, ş or ж are left untouched, so parts of the text remain readable.
  • Using plain ROT13 in another tool to decode this output. ROT13 alone leaves digits unchanged, so the numbers would come out wrong; the digit shift of 5 is needed as well.
  • Applying the tool twice and expecting a different result. Two passes cancel out and return the starting text.
  • Forgetting that spaces and punctuation are kept, which still shows word lengths and structure.

About this calculator

ROT13 shifts each letter 13 places through the alphabet (A→N, B→O, ...), which is its own inverse since the Latin alphabet has 26 letters — applying it twice returns the original text. ROT5 applies the same idea to digits, shifting each one 5 places through the 10-digit cycle (0-9), and is commonly paired with ROT13 so a combined transform obscures both letters and numbers in one pass (sometimes labeled ROT13.5 or ROT18).

It's a deliberately weak, non-cryptographic obfuscation used on forums and newsgroups to hide spoilers, puzzle answers, or joke punchlines from casual view, and it remains a staple exercise in programming tutorials for practicing modular arithmetic and string manipulation.

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