Text Cleanup Tools › Characters and symbols
Remove Zero-Width Characters
Strip the invisible characters that sneak into copied text and break searches, imports and comparisons.
Processed on your device. Nothing is uploaded or stored on a server.
How it works
- Paste the text that behaves strangely.
- Read the count of hidden characters found, shown above the result.
- Copy the cleaned text.
Example
invisible text with a hidden mark and softhyphen
invisible text with a hidden mark and softhyphen
What this tool does
Some characters take up no visible space: zero-width space, zero-width joiner and non-joiner, word joiner, the byte-order mark, soft hyphens and left-to-right or right-to-left direction marks. They appear when copying from web pages, chat apps and documents, and they make text look identical while comparing as different. They cause failed logins, mismatched spreadsheet lookups, broken file names and odd cursor jumps. This tool removes the common ones. Note that a zero-width joiner is also used inside some emoji and in certain scripts, so removing it from text in those languages can change how the words display.
Common problems
The count says zero but something is still odd
The culprit may be a normal character that looks unusual, such as a non-breaking space. Try the extra spaces tool.
Emoji sequences changed
Zero-width joiners glue emoji together, so removing them can split a family emoji into separate pictures.
Questions
Where do hidden characters come from?
Often from web pages, messaging apps, PDF copies and tools that add them to mark or fingerprint text.
Does this make text undetectable as AI or copied?
No. It only removes invisible formatting characters and does not change wording.
Does it remove normal spaces?
No. Only invisible characters are removed.
Related tools
Last reviewed 2026-10-14.