Text Cleaner

Remove invisible characters, convert dashes and smart quotes, and tidy spacing.

FREE · NO SIGN-UP · RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE

Your text stays on your device

  • 4SWITCHES
  • 6INVISIBLE TYPES
  • 0SIGN-UP
  • 1TAP TO COPY
In practice

What you can count on

  • 4switches
    • Invisibles, dashes, quotes, spacing
    • Turn any of them off
  • 1count line
    • Names every mark it found
    • Says so plainly when there are none
  • 0uploads
    • Nothing leaves the tab
    • Nothing is stored
Specification

Text Cleaner at a glance

Invisible characters
Six kinds removed
Spaces
Odd spaces normalized
Dashes
Hyphen or comma
Quotes
Straightened
Spacing
Spacing tidied
Count
Counted, not guessed
Price
Free
Account required
None
Where it runs
On your device
How to

How to use Text Cleaner

  1. 1

    Paste your text

    A sample is already loaded so you can see what each switch does.

  2. 2

    Choose the switches

    All four are on. Turn any of them off to keep that mark.

  3. 3

    Read the count and copy

    The count line names what was found, then one tap copies the cleaned text.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

What are invisible characters?

Zero-width and joining characters that take up no space but are still there. They survive copying and can break searches and comparisons.

Does this judge where the text came from?

No. It removes invisible characters and normalizes dashes, quotes and spacing. It does not score or classify the writing.

Why turn an em dash into a hyphen?

Plain hyphens survive systems that mangle other characters. Where a dash sat between spaces it becomes a spaced hyphen, so the sentence still reads.

Can I keep the smart quotes?

Yes. Turn that switch off and the quotes are left exactly as they are while the other cleaning still runs.

Will this break my emoji?

It can. A family emoji is several people joined by a zero-width joiner, and that joiner is one of the invisible characters removed here — so the group comes apart into separate figures and is counted as removed.

Background

What the marks actually are

Four switches, all on to start. Paste your text and read what came out: the count line names every mark that was found, so nothing is removed quietly.

  • A zero-width space takes no room on screen but still counts as a character to anything comparing strings.
  • Non-breaking spaces stop lines wrapping where you want them to, which is why they become ordinary spaces.
  • Smart quotes break code and some import formats, where a straight quote is what is expected.
  • Counting what was removed is the only way to know the paste is actually clean rather than merely reformatted.

Full specification

Specification of the Text Cleaner tool
Invisible charactersZero-width space, non-joiner, joiner, word joiner, byte order mark and soft hyphen.
SpacesNon-breaking and narrow no-break spaces become ordinary spaces.
DashesEm and en dashes become a hyphen or a comma, your choice.
QuotesCurly quotes become straight ones and an ellipsis becomes three dots.
SpacingRepeated spaces collapse, trailing spaces go, long gaps between paragraphs shorten.
CountEvery category found is listed with its number before you copy.
PriceFree. Supported by clearly labeled ads placed outside the working area.
Account requiredNo.
Where it runsIn your browser tab. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Next step

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