Invisible Character Remover

Find and strip characters you cannot see.

FREE · NO SIGN-UP · RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE

Your text stays on your device

  • 6INVISIBLE TYPES
  • 2ODD SPACES
  • 0SIGN-UP
  • 1TAP TO COPY
Specification

Invisible Character Remover at a glance

Removed
Six kinds removed
Normalised
Odd spaces normalised
Count
Counted, not guessed
Other cleaning
Three more switches
Length
Before and after
Price
Free
Account required
None
Where it runs
On your device
How to

How to use Invisible Character Remover

  1. 1

    Paste the text

    Paste the text.

  2. 2

    Read the count

    Read the count.

  3. 3

    Copy it back

    Copy it back.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

How do I know there are invisible characters?

The count line says how many were found. If there are none it says so, rather than leaving you to guess.

Where do they come from?

Copying out of web pages, documents and chat windows. They are used for line breaking and text shaping and travel with the copy.

What is a byte order mark?

A character at the start of a file that records its encoding. Pasted into the middle of text it does nothing useful and is removed here.

Are non-breaking spaces removed?

They are turned into ordinary spaces rather than deleted, so the words stay separated but the line can wrap normally.

Background

Where hidden characters cause trouble

The invisible switch is on and the rest are off, so only the hidden characters go. Turn the others on if you want the dashes, quotes and spacing cleaned too.

  • A search fails when a zero-width character sits inside the word you are looking for.
  • Two strings that look identical will not compare as equal if one carries a hidden character.
  • Character counts run high, which matters where a field has a strict limit.
  • Soft hyphens only appear when a word wraps, so they can sit unnoticed in text for a long time.

Full specification

Specification of the Invisible Character Remover tool
RemovedZero-width space, non-joiner, joiner, word joiner, byte order mark and soft hyphen.
NormalisedNon-breaking and narrow no-break spaces become ordinary spaces.
CountThe number found is shown before you copy anything.
Other cleaningDash, quote and spacing switches are there if you want them.
LengthCharacters in and characters out, so the difference is visible.
PriceFree. Supported by clearly labelled ads placed outside the working area.
Account requiredNo.
Where it runsIn your browser tab. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Next step

Keep going with the same files

All text tools: Text tools on SPOTTOOLS