How to clean invisible characters from text
Text copied from documents and apps can contain special spaces, zero-width marks, and control characters that are hard to see. They can interfere with search, copying, and automated reading.
Analyze textWhat kinds of characters can appear?
Some marks take up no visible space. A zero-width space, for example, can split two letters without looking different. Non-breaking and other Unicode spaces look like regular spaces but can affect search, comparison, and pasting between apps.
Digital Workshop identifies common groups of invisible characters and special spaces, then shows what it found before cleaning. Special spaces are normalized to a regular space; selected invisible marks are removed.
Why are some characters preserved?
Not every zero-width character is unwanted. ZWJ and ZWNJ can be important in many writing systems and in emoji sequences, so the cleaner preserves them. Text direction controls are also kept by default; removing them is optional and can affect right-to-left languages.
How to clean text in your browser
- Paste your text or open a UTF-8 .txt or .md file up to 1 MB.
- Analyze it to see the groups and Unicode code points found.
- Select “Clean characters,” then review the result before copying or downloading.
The current limit is 20,000 words. Processing happens in your browser; the text is not sent to a server. The tool does not execute pasted text or open files with macros.
Example: normalize a special space
To make the character visible here, we use the notation [U+00A0]: order[U+00A0]123. This non-breaking space can be converted to a regular space, producing order 123. The tool shows the group it found before cleaning; review the output, especially if special spaces have meaning in your text.
Cleaning characters is not authorship detection
Finding an invisible character does not prove who wrote the text. Editors, PDFs, messaging apps, and copy-and-paste workflows can add them. This tool does not rewrite text to make it sound human, detect AI authorship, or remove statistical signals based on word choice.
The result keeps your words and structure except for the specific marks removed or spaces normalized. Always review the output, especially when your text uses specialized scripts or formatting.
Frequently asked questions
Does my text leave my device?
No. Analysis and cleaning run locally in your browser. The site does not send text to a cleaning service.
Does this remove an AI watermark from text?
It removes some common invisible characters, not signals encoded in word choice. It does not change authorship or guarantee a result with detectors.
Can I clean Word or PDF files directly?
This tool accepts pasted text and .txt or .md files. Export the document as plain text, then review formatting and characters before using the result.
Need to clean a photo too? Read the image metadata guide or open the image cleaner.