What are hidden characters in copied text?

Hidden characters are invisible formatting marks or control characters that can appear when text is copied from websites, PDFs, documents, or apps.

Can I strip HTML without uploading the text?

Yes. PDFTechnician's Text Cleaner runs in your browser, so the pasted text is processed locally.

Clean copied text

Strip HTML and hidden characters

Remove pasted HTML tags, invisible characters, odd quote marks, and formatting leftovers from copied text. The cleanup happens locally in your browser.

Open Text Cleaner

When to use this

Copied text can carry more than the words you can see. It may include HTML tags from a web page, zero-width characters, non-breaking spaces, smart quotes, or formatting marks from a PDF or document editor. These characters can break forms, make content look uneven, or create strange behaviour when you paste into a website, email, spreadsheet, or publishing tool.

The Text Cleaner is useful before adding content to WordPress, Substack, a CRM, an invoice note, a spreadsheet, or an email template. You can paste the text, strip unwanted markup and hidden characters, then copy clean plain text back out.

How to strip unwanted formatting

1. Paste textAdd the copied content into the Text Cleaner input area.

2. Strip hidden charactersUse the strip HTML and hidden characters action, then apply spacing or quote cleanup if needed.

3. Copy clean textCopy the output or download it as a plain text file.

Privacy note

Text copied from private documents can include client names, drafts, notes, or commercial information. PDFTechnician processes the text in your browser rather than sending it to a server.