In monochrome images, each pixel is made up of one bit. In true color images, each pixel is made up of at least 24 bits. The particular sequence of bits in a byte encodes a unit of information such as a keyboard character. One byte typically represents a single character such as a number, letter, or symbol. Bits and bytes are the basis for representing all meaningful information and programs on computers.
Bytes are the major unit for measuring quantities of data or data capacity.
A regular, floppy disk normally holds 1.44 megabytes of data, which equates to approximately 1,400,000 keyboard characters. At this storage capacity, a single disk can hold a document approximately 700 pages long, with 2000 characters per page. Values that fall between two numbers are represented as either the lower or the higher of the two. Because digital representation represents a value as a coded number, the range of values represented can be very wide, although the number of possible values is limited by the number of bits used. A drawing or photograph, for example, can be digitized by a scanner that converts lines and shading into combinations of 0's and 1's by sensing different intensities of light and dark.