Four-Square Cipher — Free Online Tool

Encrypt and decrypt digraphs using two keyword squares and two plain 5×5 squares. Round-trip guaranteed. Four-Square Cipher is a free online tool from the ToolsRift Text Encoding Tools collection. It runs entirely in your browser — nothing to install, no signup, and your data never leaves your device.

Loading Four-Square Cipher

How to use Four-Square Cipher

  1. Open the Four-Square Cipher above — it loads instantly, no account needed.
  2. Enter or upload your input. Everything is processed locally on your device.
  3. Get your result immediately and copy or download it with one click.

Frequently asked questions

How does the four-square cipher work?

Four 5×5 grids are arranged in a square: the top-left and bottom-right are plain alphabets, the top-right and bottom-left are keyword squares. Each plaintext pair is located in the two plain squares, and the ciphertext letters are read from the two keyword squares at the intersecting corners.

How is it different from Playfair?

Four-square uses two separate keyword squares instead of one, and it never has to insert filler letters between doubled letters. Only an odd-length message is padded with a trailing X.

Does it round-trip exactly?

Yes. Encoding then decoding an even-length letter message with the same two keywords restores it exactly (J is merged into I, output uppercased).

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