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Number to Words (Indian System)

Both directions, both numbering systems: lakh, crore, arab and kharab beside million and billion, a proper cheque line, and a words-to-number verifier.

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Number to words

Writes a figure the way a cheque has to be written, and reads a cheque written by someone else back to a figure. The two numbering systems are kept apart deliberately, because mixing them is how a correct figure turns into a wrong one: a crore is 10 million, not a million, and there is no way to guess which one a words line meant.

Numbering system
Thousand, lakh, crore, arab: each step after thousand is a hundred times the last.

Cheque line

Full cheque line
Words only, no currency labelOne Lakh Twenty-Three Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Six and Fifty Paise
Minor unitFifty Paise
Figure as read1,23,456.50

The line above is the convention, not a rule: banks have their own wording and their own house style, and a cheque written differently can still be honoured. Confirm with the bank before relying on it.

The same figure, the other system

Indian (selected)One Lakh Twenty-Three Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Six and Fifty Paise
International (other)One Hundred Twenty-Three Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Six and Fifty Paise
Difference in the same wordsA different number entirely

1 crore = 10 million, 1 lakh = 100 thousand, 1 arab = 1 billion. A figure written in lakhs read with the international ladder is a hundred times too small.

Both lines describe the same number of rupees. Only one of them will be understood the way the writer meant it, which is the whole reason this comparison is here.

On a cheque, the word “Only” goes at the end of the line and everything after it is left blank: a line drawn through the rest stops a later line being added to the same cheque. Unused space is ruled through rather than left empty, and the words must be written in the same line as the figure. Wording is not standardised across banks, so the bank is the authority on what it will accept, and anything in doubt is worth asking them before the cheque is signed.

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, stored, or logged.

What this tool does

One crore is ten million, and that single fact is where cheque lines go wrong. The Indian system groups digits as 3 then 2-2-2 and steps by a hundred after thousand; the international system groups 3-3-3 and steps by a thousand. This tool keeps both ladders side by side, writes the cheque line the banks expect including the paise, and — the part that actually matters when a cheque arrives — reads someone else's words back into a number and tells you whether it matches the figure.

How it works

The two ladders are the whole design. The international one goes thousand, million, billion, trillion, so 123,456,789 is One Hundred Twenty-Three Million Four Hundred Fifty-Six Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty-Nine. The Indian one takes the last three digits as their own group and then works backwards in pairs, so the same figure is Twelve Crore Thirty-Four Lakh Fifty-Six Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty-Nine. From thousand upwards each step is a factor of a hundred rather than a thousand: thousand, lakh (10^5), crore (10^7), arab (10^9), kharab (10^11), continuing to neel, padma and shankh. That is why 15,200,000 is One Crore Fifty-Two Lakh in India and Fifteen Million Two Hundred Thousand everywhere else, and why 2,500,000,000 is Two Arab Fifty Crore rather than Two Billion Five Hundred Million. Past the last named step the digits are reported plainly instead of being given an invented word.

Money is never read as "point five". A value is split into a whole part and a two-digit minor part, and the minor part becomes a currency word: 1,234,567.50 is "Rupees Twelve Lakh Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Seven and Fifty Paise Only". The "Only" at the end and the currency label in front are not decoration — they are the standard cheque line, and the anti-tamper convention is the reason the amount is written out at all: a figure can be altered, a spelled-out line is much harder to alter without leaving an obvious inconsistency. Minor-unit spellings vary by currency and by country, so paise and paisa are both accepted on input, as are cent, cents, penny, pence and pennies.

The verifier runs the opposite direction, which is the actual job when you are checking an incoming cheque or reconciling a payment reference. It tokenises the words, drops filler like "and", "only", "rupees" and "rs", folds hundred as a multiplier, and adds each scale word into a running total. It accepts both ladders in the same sentence, because a cheque may be written in either, and values that mean the same amount in both systems simply share a number. Anything it does not recognise is ignored rather than voiding the whole line, so one stray word does not turn a readable cheque into an unreadable one. When the parsed figure matches the printed figure exactly, it says so; when it does not, it reports both numbers and the difference in rupees, which is the number you actually need.

Currencies covered are INR, PKR, NPR, USD, GBP and EUR, and the two numbering systems can be switched independently so you can read the same figure both ways. The whole thing runs in the browser. Note that the tool is deliberately placed in the text category rather than math: reading a number out in words is a writing task, and it is usually done in the middle of composing a document rather than as arithmetic in its own right.

Worked example

Writing a cheque line for 1,234,567.50, and then checking the words on a cheque someone sent you.

  1. Enter 1234567.50 in the Indian system: "Rupees Twelve Lakh Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Seven and Fifty Paise Only"
  2. The same figure in the international system is "One Million Two Hundred Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Seven" — the same digits read out through the other ladder
  3. Switch systems for 15200000: "One Crore Fifty-Two Lakh" becomes "Fifteen Million Two Hundred Thousand"
  4. Verify mode: paste "Rupees Twelve Lakh Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Seven and Fifty Paise Only" against 1234567.50 and it reports a parsed value of 1234567.50 and a difference of 0.00
  5. Change the printed figure to 123457 and the same words now read 1234567.50, which is 1234566.50 more than the figure shown

A cheque line in the form the banking system expects, plus a verification that catches a mismatch between the written amount and the printed figure before the cheque is deposited.

Accuracy and limitations

  • Both ladders stop at a named step — shankh and quintillion — and past that the digits are reported plainly rather than given an invented word, because there is no agreed term to use.
  • Verification reads English number words in either ladder. It is not a language model: a word it does not recognise is ignored, so an unusual spelling may make a correct line read short rather than fail loudly.
  • The verifier is a reading aid, not a substitute for your bank. It is most useful for catching a mistyped or mis-laddered amount before you queue at the counter, where the difference is a wasted trip.

Frequently asked questions

How many lakh is one crore?
One hundred lakh. One crore is 10 million and 7,000,000,000 is seven hundred crore, because after thousand the Indian ladder steps by a hundred at a time rather than a thousand. That is the structural difference: 1,00,000,00,000 is read as one thousand crore, while 1,000,000,000 is one thousand million in the international system.
What is 123456 in words?
One Lakh Twenty-Three Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Six in the Indian system, because the digits group as 1-23-456 rather than 123-456. In the international system the same number is One Hundred Twenty-Three Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Six. Both are correct, and the difference is not a rounding issue — they are two different grouping conventions for the same digits.
How do I write an amount in words on a cheque?
Enter the figure and the currency and read the line back. 1,234,567.50 in rupees gives "Rupees Twelve Lakh Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Seven and Fifty Paise Only". The currency label in front and the word Only at the end are part of the expected format, and the amount is written out in words because a spelled-out line is much harder to alter quietly than a printed figure.
Is one crore the same as one million?
No, and this is the single most common mix-up. One crore is ten million. One lakh is one hundred thousand. If a document mixes the two — a contract that says "1.5 crore" in one clause and "15 lakh" in another — the two figures are not equal, and no amount of reformatting makes them agree.
Can this check someone else's cheque?
Yes, and that is what the verify mode is for. Paste the written words and the printed figure and it reads the words back into a number, then reports the parsed value and the exact difference. It accepts either ladder and common filler words like "rupees", "only" and "and", and ignores words it does not recognise rather than failing on them.
How do I write 15.2 crore in words?
Fifteen lakh twenty thousand, or One Crore Fifty-Two Lakh. It is not "one crore fifty-two lakh" multiplied by anything, and it is definitely not 152 lakh — that would be 1.52 crore, a different amount. Give the tool the figure and it will render it in whichever ladder you select, which is the safest way to avoid the conversion by hand.