✏️ Text Tools

Find hidden characters in text

Reveal invisible and look-alike characters hiding in copied or AI-generated text, see exactly where they sit, and clean them out. Nothing leaves your browser.

🧹 AI Text Cleaner Removes ChatGPT formatting, em dashes & more
Presets: toggle what to clean
Custom rules: find & replace your own
Cleaned output

Frequently asked questions

What does the AI Text Cleaner remove?
It strips formatting commonly added by AI writing tools: em dashes, curly/smart quotes, bullet symbols, markdown bold and italic syntax, ellipsis characters, hidden characters such as zero-width and non-breaking spaces, and extra blank lines between paragraphs.
How can I see hidden characters before cleaning?
Click Show hidden characters. It lists every invisible or look-alike character with its Unicode code and count, marks where each one sits in your text, and decodes any text hidden in tag characters. Joiners and direction marks that emoji and right-to-left languages need are kept when you clean.
Can I add my own replacements?
Yes. Use the Custom Rules section to add your own find and replace pairs. These run after the presets so you can layer your own corrections on top.
Does this store or send my text anywhere?
No. All processing happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is sent to any server.
📊 Word & Character Counter Live stats as you type
0Words
0Characters
0No Spaces
0Sentences
0Paragraphs
0mRead Time
Character limits reference
Twitter / X
0/280
SMS
0/160
Meta title
0/60
Meta description
0/160
Instagram bio
0/150
🔠 Case Converter Instant, no button needed
Output
🗂️ Remove Duplicates Lines or words
Remove duplicate:
Output
↔️ List ↔ CSV Converter Column to separated values and back
Mode:
Delimiter:
Output
🔃 Text Sorter Sort lines in any order
Output
🔍 Find & Replace Bulk replace across pasted text
Find
Replace with
Output
✂️ Whitespace Cleaner Clean up pasted text from PDFs, emails and docs
What to clean
Output
🔗 Keyword Merger Merge multiple lists, get all unique words
Paste one keyword list per box. All lists will be merged and deduplicated into a single clean output.
Merged output
🔀 Text Diff Checker Compare two texts word by word
Original text
Changed text
Differences green = added   red = removed
Differences will be highlighted here after you click Compare.

About Text Vault

Is Text Vault completely free?
Yes. Every tool is free with no signup, no account required and no usage limits.
Does Text Vault store or send my text?
No. All processing happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is ever sent to a server and your text is never stored anywhere.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. Text Vault is fully responsive and works on phones and tablets. Tools are accessible via the tab bar at the top on smaller screens.

How to use the Hidden Character Finder tool

  1. Paste or type your text. The hidden-character list updates as you type.
  2. Check the table: each kind of character, its Unicode code, how many there are and what cleaning does with it. The preview marks where each one sits.
  3. Click Clean Text and copy the result. Joiners and direction marks that emoji, Urdu, Persian and Arabic need are kept.

Questions

Why does pasted text contain invisible characters?

Word processors, websites, PDFs and chat tools use special characters for layout: non-breaking spaces that keep words together, zero-width spaces that allow line breaks, and direction marks for right-to-left languages. They survive copy and paste, and can break searches, word counts, code and form fields.

Is it safe to remove them?

Usually. Clean Text keeps the characters some text genuinely needs: zero-width joiners that hold emoji like family and flag sequences together, and direction marks that keep Urdu, Persian or Arabic in the right order.

What are tag characters?

Invisible Unicode characters that mirror ordinary letters. A few flag emoji use them, but they can also hide whole sentences inside normal-looking text. The finder decodes any hidden text it finds so you can read it.

Related tools

All Text Vault tools