Invisible Characters
Detect hidden characters such as zero-width spaces, control codes, and special spaces, with stats and Unicode lookup.About: Detects invisible characters (zero-width, control codes, exotic spaces) and marks them in place with colour, plus summary stats and one-click cleanup. Ships with a Unicode invisible-character reference table. Everything runs in your local browser — no data is uploaded.
Character viewer
Unicode lookup
Input text
Annotated result
Type or paste text on the left — invisible characters are marked here in colour
Total characters
0
Invisible characters
0
Distinct types
0
Show spaces:
Features
- Marked in place: Each hidden character gets a small marker at its real position
- Accurately named: Every marker carries its Unicode name and code point
- Colour-coded: Whitespace, Unicode spaces, zero-width, bidi controls and control codes each have their own colour
- Counts and totals: Tally of how often each hidden character appears
- One-click cleanup: Removes zero-width, control and bidi characters while keeping normal spaces and line breaks
- Unicode lookup: Details for every invisible Unicode character
When this helps
- Debug matching or search failures caused by zero-width spaces / NBSP copied from the web
- Strip stray control codes and BOM from source, YAML or JSON
- Spot bidi override tricks used to hide text (security review)
- Normalise text before it enters a CMS or database
- Compare two strings that look identical but aren't equal
- Audit sample data exported to CSV / spreadsheets