Roman Numeral Converter

How does this Roman numeral converter work?

Need to convert Roman numeral to Arabic or the reverse? You can use the above tool by inputting the Roman numeral, or the Arabic between 1 and 4999 and pressing the Convert button.  

Please note that the Roman numeral converter allows the conversion only up to 4999 because numbers higher than this are formed by placing a dash over the symbol, that means "times 1,000" and this cannot be represented in ASCII format.

The roman numerals letters are:

I = 1, V = 5, X = 10, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500, M = 1000;

The Roman Numeral Converter uses the following Roman numerals principles and rules:

- letters need to be arranged from the largest to the smallest value, each value will be added to the previous ones ( 155= CLV not VLC or other combinations);

- only powers of ten: I, X, C, M; can be repeated;

- do not repeat any letter more than three times in a row (44 = XLIV not XLIIII);

- symbols V, L and D cannot appear more than once consecutively;

- in case that a letter representing a smaller value precedes one with a larger value, the value of the smaller one is subtracted from the larger and the result is added to the rest of the letters;

- only powers of ten (I, X, C, M) can be subtracted.

The most used and searched roman numerals chart for Arabic numbers between 1 and 1000 are presented below: