How to use remove specific characters
- Paste your text into Your text.
- Type every character you want deleted into Characters to remove, with no separators between them. The default is
$,()!. - Use
\tfor a tab and\nfor a line break. - Tick Ignore case (removing a also removes A) if case should not matter.
- Copy the cleaned text.
What it does and when to use it
Some clean-up jobs need just a few characters gone, while the rest of the punctuation must stay. A general punctuation remover would go too far. This tool removes only what you list.
Typical jobs:
- Prices and numbers. Remove currency signs and thousands commas so a spreadsheet reads the values as numbers.
- Phone numbers. Strip +, brackets, hyphens and spaces to get digits only.
- File names and IDs. Remove characters that a system does not allow, such as
/ : * ? " < > |. - Copied data. Delete stray quote marks or asterisks left over from a Markdown or CSV export.
To remove all digits, use remove numbers. To remove accents but keep the letters, use remove accents. For runs of extra spaces rather than all spaces, try remove extra spaces.
How it works
The tool reads the Characters to remove box, turns \t and \n into a real tab and line break, and builds a set of characters. With Ignore case, both the upper and lower case form of each letter are added. It then goes through your text one character at a time and keeps only the characters that are not in the set. Nothing else is changed, not even spacing. If the box is empty, the tool shows “Enter the characters you want removed.” The text stays in your browser.
Worked examples
These outputs come from the tool’s own function.
A price. “Price: $1,299.00 (incl. VAT)!” with the default $,()! gives Price: 1299.00 incl. VAT. The colon and full stops stay, because they were not in the list.
A phone number. “+44 (0)20 7946-0958” with +()- (including a space at the end) gives 4402079460958.
Case ignored. “Banana Avocado” with a and Ignore case ticked gives Bnn vocdo. The capital A went too.
Limits and tips
- Characters are handled one Unicode code point at a time. An emoji made of several code points, such as a flag, is best removed with find and replace.
- Removing spaces next to punctuation can join words together, as in “incl.VAT”. Check the result.
Frequently asked questions
Does it remove a word or a sequence like "abc"?
How do I remove tabs or line breaks?
How do I remove spaces?
Is it case-sensitive?
Can I remove all punctuation at once without typing it?
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