Strip Formatting from Text (Plain Text, Free)

Why Strip Formatting?

Rich text from Word, Google Docs, or CMSes contains invisible formatting: smart quotes, zero-width spaces, non-breaking spaces, hidden characters, and Unicode oddities. Stripping formatting removes ALL special characters and converts to pure ASCII plain text—critical for code, JSON, CSV, and systems that break with special characters.

Common Use Cases

• Fix JSON errors: Remove hidden Unicode characters causing JSON.parse() failures
• Code cleanup: Strip invisible characters from code pasted from Word or web pages
• CSV exports: Remove formatting that breaks CSV parsers or causes encoding errors
• Database imports: Clean text before inserting into databases to prevent character encoding issues
• API requests: Strip formatting from request bodies to prevent API validation errors
• Form submissions: Clean user input with hidden characters before processing

Why This Tool?

• Complete stripping: Removes smart quotes, zero-width spaces, non-ASCII characters, and all formatting
• Pure ASCII output: Converts to plain text safe for any system or format
• Instant cleaning: Paste text and strip formatting in milliseconds
• 100% client-side: Your text never touches our servers—runs in your browser
• Free forever: Unlimited formatting removal with no rate limits

Pro tip: After stripping formatting, use Fix Smart Quotes for remaining curly quotes or Remove Extra Spaces to normalize whitespace.