Base41: A proposal for printable encoding of bit strings

This article presents the proposal of a novel encoding method for representing binary data in printable format. The encoding procedure reversibly transforms binary strings into printable letter sequences using a mapping from bit strings to an alphabet of 41 symbols taken from a subset of the English uppercase and lowercase letters. The decoding process reversibly recovers an original bit string from the encoded printable string. The encoding and decoding algorithms along with the properties of this coding are examined and discussed. In particular, the use of only URL-safe and clearly visually distinguishable characters is emphasized.