Free tools / Text cleanup tool
Text cleanup tool: remove hidden characters and stray formatting
Our text cleanup tool removes or normalizes the artifacts pasted text carries: zero-width and other invisible characters, non-breaking spaces, curly quotes, long dashes, stray Markdown, HTML tags and utm_ tracking tags in links. Choose the options and see a count of every change before you copy the clean text.
The cleanup runs in this page. Nothing you enter is sent to our server. Paste up to 100,000 characters.
No email is needed, and nothing you paste is stored. A shared result stays in its link, not on our server.
What we check and why
Invisible characters
Zero-width spaces and joiners, byte order marks, bidirectional controls, soft hyphens, tag characters, private-use characters and control characters are removed.
Spaces and punctuation
Non-breaking and other unusual spaces become normal spaces; curly quotes become straight; em dashes become a spaced hyphen and en dashes a hyphen; the ellipsis character becomes three periods; bullet characters become hyphens.
Markup and tracking
HTML tags and Markdown marks can be removed, and utm_ tracking parameters are taken out of links while the rest of each link stays.
Off by default
Options that can change how the text reads are off until you choose them: HTML removal, Markdown removal, citation markers and variation selectors, which can change how some emoji look.
A count of every change
The result lists how many changes each option made and how many invisible characters remain.
Questions
How do I remove hidden characters from text?
Paste the text here with the invisible-character option on. We remove zero-width spaces and joiners, byte order marks, bidirectional controls, soft hyphens and tag characters, and show how many we removed.
Why does text copied from a chat assistant look odd in my editor?
It often carries Markdown marks such as ** and ##, curly quotes and long dashes, and sometimes invisible characters. They come from formatting, not from the words, and the cleanup removes them.
Does cleanup change my words?
No. It changes characters and markup: invisible characters, spaces, quotes, dashes and the options you choose. Markdown and citation removal are off by default, because they can change how the text reads.
Want the fix made for you?
Answer Repair completes one agreed source-backed page or fix. Choose Live or Handoff before payment. Due 48 elapsed hours after Ready. Full refund on request within 30 days of delivery.
When you want us to do the work, every offer and its published price is on our offers page. More free checks: the ChatGPT Business Hub readiness check, the text watermark signal checker, the content scoring tool and the local file analyzer, or see all free tools.