Remove special characters from text
Strip symbols, emoji and other special characters from text and keep letters, digits and spaces. The text is processed in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
How it works
-
Paste your text
Type or paste the text in the left box, or open a .txt file. No text to hand? Click Example.
-
Instant result
The result appears as you type. Change the options and see straight away what changes.
-
Copy or download
Copy the result with one click, save it as a file or use it as input for a next step.
Example
Price: €2,50 — a “quote” & #hashtag! 😀 café becomes Price 250 a quote hashtag café. The default keeps accented letters, so café stays as it is.
With Keep normal punctuation and Keep emoji ticked, and accented letters turned into plain ones, the same text becomes Price: 2,50 a quote hashtag! 😀 cafe.
What you can keep
- Accented letters (é, ü, ñ): on by default. Untick it to convert them to plain letters.
- Normal punctuation (. , ! ? ; : - ' " and brackets): off by default.
- Emoji: off by default.
- Remaining double spaces are cleaned up.
Typical uses
Preparing text for a system that only accepts letters and numbers, cleaning up data copied from a web page, or removing decorative symbols such as ★ and → from a list. To remove only punctuation and keep other symbols, use remove punctuation; to remove digits, remove numbers. When accents are the only problem, remove accents is gentler.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a special character?
Anything that is not a letter, a digit or a space: symbols such as € and #, punctuation, quotation marks, dashes and emoji. With the options you can keep accented letters, common punctuation and emoji.
Which punctuation can I keep?
The common marks . , ! ? ; : - ' " and brackets. Anything else, such as @ or #, goes. To keep one particular character, use [find and replace](/en/text/find-and-replace-text) instead.
Why did €2,50 become 250?
The euro sign and the comma are both special characters. Tick *Keep normal punctuation* to keep the comma and get `2,50`; the euro sign still goes.
What happens to the extra spaces that are left behind?
With *Tidy leftover double spaces* ticked, which is the default, they are reduced to one space.