What are these hidden characters?
- Zero-width space (U+200B) — an invisible word break. Splits words for computers while looking like nothing to humans; breaks Ctrl+F and code.
- Word joiner (U+2060) & zero-width joiners (U+200C/D) — invisible glue between characters.
- Narrow no-break space (U+202F) — a slightly-thinner space common in AI output; visually near-identical to a normal space, but a different character.
- Soft hyphen (U+00AD) — invisible until a line breaks, then a hyphen appears from nowhere.
- Directional marks (U+200E/F, U+202A–E) — control text direction; harmless in Arabic/Hebrew contexts, junk everywhere else.
Why it matters
These characters survive copy-paste. They can make identical-looking strings fail comparison, break spreadsheets and code, mess up character counts, and act as an accidental fingerprint of where your text came from. This tool deletes the invisible ones and converts unusual spaces to regular spaces — and tells you exactly how many it found.
Is this the same as an "AI watermark"?
Some hidden characters in AI output are just formatting habits; whether any constitute deliberate watermarking is debated. Either way, they serve no purpose in your text and are safe to remove.
Will this change visible formatting?
No — it only removes characters that render as nothing, and normalizes exotic spaces to regular ones. Your visible text is untouched.