Find Invisible Characters
Detect zero-width and hidden characters in a block of text — the ones used to fingerprint a document — and remove them.
What it does
Find Invisible Characters operates on the text you paste, line by line, and shows the result as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no length limit beyond what your browser will hold.
When you need it
The kind of tidying that is tedious by hand and error-prone in a spreadsheet: a list pasted out of an email, an export with inconsistent casing, a column of addresses with duplicates in it.
Limits and caveats
Line endings are normalised, and leading and trailing whitespace is treated as significant unless the tool says otherwise. Nothing is stored: reload the page and the text is gone. Everything happens in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.
How to use the Find Invisible Characters
- Paste your content, or load a file.
- The result appears as you type.
- Copy or download the output.
Frequently asked questions
- Why would text contain invisible characters?
- Two reasons. By accident, from Word, a PDF or a web page — a non-breaking space that then breaks your CSV. Or on purpose: giving each recipient a copy with a different pattern of zero-width characters is the standard way to identify which one leaked.
- So this defeats document fingerprinting?
- It removes this kind of it, which is the common kind. Fingerprints can also be hidden in wording, spacing or punctuation, and nothing here can see those. Treat it as removing the obvious marker, not as anonymity.
- Why keep non-breaking spaces as an option?
- Because deleting one runs two words together. Cleaned normally they become ordinary spaces; the option is there for when the layout depends on them.
- Do my files get uploaded?
- No. This tool runs entirely in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.