Unicode text cleaner

Normalize and Clean Unicode Text

Your text never leaves your browser.Analysis and cleaning happen locally on your device.

Text can look identical while using different Unicode character sequences. Normalize those sequences for more consistent searching, matching, validation, storage, and transfer between applications.

Read the guide

Input Text

Paste your text to get started. Choose the revisions you want, then copy the result for its destination.

728 / 500,000 characters

Rich paste detected: 1 bold span and 1 paragraph boundary. The boundaries remain single line breaks until you choose to restore spacing and clean the text.

Ready-to-Paste Output

Choose revisions, then prepare the text for its destination.

Copy for

Inline-styled HTML, Windows line endings, and explicit blank rows.

Unicode text cleaner guide

Make equivalent text use a consistent representation

Unicode sometimes represents the same visible character in more than one way. For example, “é” may be stored as one precomposed character or as the letter “e” followed by a combining accent. Exact comparisons can treat those sequences as different even when a reader cannot see a difference.

This page enables NFC, the conservative normalization form recommended for most prose. NFC combines canonically equivalent sequences while generally preserving meaningful distinctions. You can deliberately choose NFKC when compatibility forms should also be folded into simpler equivalents.

Inspect the sequence

Paste the text and open Character Inspector when you need to identify code points, combining marks, or visually confusing characters.

Choose a normalization form

Use NFC for ordinary text. Choose NFKC only when broader compatibility is more important than preserving presentation distinctions.

Compare before replacing

Revise the text and review the result in its destination, particularly for identifiers, mathematical notation, or language-specific content.

Before and after example

Before

Café

The final letter is stored as “e” (U+0065) followed by COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT (U+0301).

After

Café

NFC composes the canonically equivalent sequence into LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE (U+00E9), making the representation consistent.

Limitations to review

Normalization does not translate text, correct spelling, or determine whether a character belongs to the intended language.
NFKC can change compatibility characters such as width variants or presentation forms. Do not use it automatically where those distinctions matter.
Normalization alone does not remove all bidirectional controls, homoglyphs, or security-sensitive characters; use the analysis and inspector findings separately.

Understand What’s Hiding in Your Text

Text can look normal while carrying characters and formatting that behave differently after you paste it. TextSnoop helps you inspect those details, choose what to revise, and prepare a copy for the destination you select.

What Does TextSnoop Detect?

TextSnoop checks for invisible and zero-width characters, unusual spaces, tabs and repeated whitespace, smart punctuation, sentence-level dashes, missing paragraph gaps, rich clipboard boundaries, Markdown, HTML, and Unicode normalization opportunities. These findings describe supported text patterns—not writing quality or authorship.

Example: A word can contain an invisible character even when it looks completely ordinary on screen.

Why Can Copied Text Contain Hidden Characters?

AI tools, websites, PDFs, email applications, and word processors often copy more than the letters you can see. They may include non-breaking spaces, zero-width markers, special punctuation, line-ending conventions, or rich formatting that another application interprets differently.

Example: A visible space may actually be a non-breaking space that prevents a line from wrapping normally.

How Does Cleaning Work?

TextSnoop uses deterministic rules rather than an AI model, and you decide which rules to apply. It can remove invisible markers, normalize spaces and line endings, tidy repeated whitespace, revise selected punctuation, and strip supported HTML or Markdown while retaining readable text. The original remains available so you can compare every change.

Example: Supported markup such as <em>text</em> or **bold** can be reduced to the readable words.

How Does TextSnoop Preserve Appearance?

The Copy For setting prepares the cleaned result for Outlook or Word, Gmail or web email, Visual Studio or another code editor, or broad universal compatibility. It adjusts the clipboard format, paragraph structure, and line endings to give the destination the version it can handle most consistently.

Example: Email can receive compatible rich text while a code editor receives plain text with controlled line endings.

How Is Text Processed?

Inspection and cleaning run locally in your browser. The text you paste and the cleaned result are not sent to or stored by TextSnoop. Cleaning preferences stay on your device, and feedback is sent only when you deliberately submit a feedback message.

Example: You can inspect, clean, compare, copy, and download text without uploading its contents to TextSnoop.

What Does TextSnoop Not Do?

TextSnoop is not an AI detector, plagiarism checker, authorship judge, or guaranteed AI-watermark remover. It reports and revises specific formatting and character patterns. Because applications handle formatting differently, you should still review important text after pasting it into its destination.

Example: A cleanliness score describes supported technical issues; it does not determine who wrote the text.

Private by design

Your text is processed locally in this tab.

Your pasted text and cleaned output are never sent to or stored by the site. Cleaning preferences stay in your browser. If you choose to send feedback, TextSnoop stores only your anonymous feedback message and submission time.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a zero-width space?

A zero-width space is a Unicode character that can separate or control text without taking up visible space. It may be inserted intentionally for language or layout support, or arrive unnoticed through copying and pasting. Although invisible, it can affect searching, matching, wrapping, validation, and source code.

How do I remove zero-width spaces?

Leave Remove invisible formatting selected, then choose Revise text. TextSnoop removes supported zero-width characters, joiners, soft hyphens, and related invisible markers. Review the result when working with languages or code where an invisible character may be intentional.

Why does pasted text sometimes lose paragraph spacing?

Some applications represent paragraphs through clipboard HTML, visual styling, or a single line break instead of an explicit blank row. The destination may ignore that structure when pasting. Restore paragraph spacing converts supported rich boundaries and likely missing gaps into explicit blank rows that email and Word can preserve more reliably.

What does Reveal Hidden show?

It makes spaces, line endings, zero-width characters, and other supported markers visible in a separate view without changing the input.

What is the Cleanliness Score?

It is a simple heuristic based on supported issue counts and text length. It is not a quality, authorship, or safety judgment.

Can TextSnoop strip HTML while retaining readable text?

Yes. Turn on Strip HTML and decode entities. TextSnoop removes recognized tags, decodes supported entities, and retains readable text and line breaks where possible. Complex layouts such as tables may still need review after their visual structure is removed.

Can it remove Markdown formatting?

Yes. Turn on Strip Markdown syntax. TextSnoop removes supported headings, lists, link syntax, emphasis, quotes, and code markers while keeping the readable content. Ambiguous punctuation that may be ordinary text is left unchanged when it cannot be identified safely.

What is Unicode normalization?

Unicode can represent text that looks identical with different underlying character sequences. Normalization converts supported sequences into a consistent standard form, which can improve searching, comparison, validation, and compatibility. It does not translate the text or change its language.

What is the difference between NFC and NFKC?

NFC combines canonically equivalent character sequences while generally preserving meaningful distinctions. NFKC also folds many compatibility variants, such as certain width or presentation forms, into simpler equivalents. NFC is the safer default for most prose; use NFKC only when broader compatibility is more important than preserving those distinctions.

Can I safely use it with source code?

Yes, with care. Choose the Visual Studio or code editor destination and review the comparison before replacing your source. Turn off punctuation, HTML, Markdown, or NFKC changes unless you specifically want them, because whitespace, symbols, line endings, and Unicode distinctions can be meaningful in code.

Why might formatting still differ in the destination application?

Applications support different clipboard formats, fonts, styles, paragraph rules, and line-ending conventions. Copy For prepares a compatible version for the selected destination, but the receiving application ultimately controls how it renders the result.

How does Copy For preserve appearance?

Choose the destination application before copying. TextSnoop prepares compatible HTML or plain text and adjusts paragraph structure and line endings so paragraphs, lists, breaks, and spacing transfer as consistently as the destination allows.

Does TextSnoop upload or store my text?

No. Inspection and cleaning happen locally in your browser, and TextSnoop does not upload or store the text you paste or the cleaned result. If you submit feedback, only the feedback message and submission time are stored; your working text is not attached.

Does TextSnoop detect whether text was written by AI?

No. TextSnoop analyzes supported characters, spacing, punctuation, markup, and formatting patterns. Those patterns can appear in both human-written and AI-generated text, so they cannot establish who or what wrote it.

Does this remove an AI Watermark?

The tool removes only the specific characters and formatting selected in the cleaning rules. It does not claim to find or remove a universal AI watermark, change authorship, or defeat AI detection.