See the characters your eyes cannot
Reveal Unicode codes, spaces and zero-width characters in any pasted string without sending the text anywhere.
| # | Character | Code point | Type |
|---|
Common invisible and formatting characters are labelled. Ordinary spaces are shown explicitly so you can distinguish them from special blanks.
Text that looks the same can still be different
Unicode gives each text character its own code. That lets computers handle letters, symbols and emoji from many writing systems. It also means two pieces of text can look the same while being made from different characters.
An ordinary space is U+0020. A no-break space is U+00A0. A zero-width space is U+200B. Hangul Filler is U+3164.
On screen, several of those may appear as “nothing,” yet a form, search engine or username system can treat them differently. The inspector makes each Unicode code visible so you can stop guessing.
Find hidden characters before they waste your time
Copied text from websites, PDFs, design tools and messaging apps can contain formatting marks you did not knowingly type. Those marks can break exact matching, make a username appear unavailable, produce strange line wrapping or prevent text from behaving normally when you edit it.
Paste the text here to see exactly what is inside it. The table shows normal spaces, hidden characters and other unusual characters one by one.
Typical jobs
- Find a zero-width character in copied text
- Distinguish normal and no-break spaces
- Check the exact characters produced by a fancy text generator
- Understand why two visually similar usernames are not equal
An unusual character is not always a problem
Unicode includes real writing systems from around the world, emoji and many useful symbols. An unusual character is not automatically bad or unsafe. Use the inspector to see what is there, then judge it by how it is being used.
If your goal is simply to clean a line for a form or username, copying the ordinary spelling again is often safer than trying to delete invisible marks one by one.
Hidden character questions
A few quick things to know before you use it.
What does a Unicode Unicode code look like?
It is usually written as U+ followed by hexadecimal digits, such as U+0041 for A or U+1F600 for 😀.
Why can two strings look identical but behave differently?
They can contain different Unicode codes: ordinary spaces versus no-break spaces, normal letters versus lookalikes, composed versus combining characters, or zero-width format characters.
Does this tool upload the text I inspect?
No. The inspector runs in your browser and builds the table from the characters you paste locally.
Can this detect every suspicious character?
It reveals Unicode codes and highlights common invisible characters, but context still matters. A legitimate multilingual string can contain unfamiliar Unicode codes, so do not treat “unusual” as automatically malicious.
Read the table without overreacting
A Unicode code table can look technical, but the useful questions are simple: is there an unexpected blank character, does a letter come from a different script, or did a combining mark hitch a ride from somewhere else? Those are the common reasons two strings that look alike fail to match.
Ordinary spaces appear explicitly so you can compare them with special blank characters. Supplementary-plane characters are kept whole, which matters for many emoji and special bold and italic characters. The character counter and Unicode-code counter can differ because JavaScript strings store some characters as more than one code unit.
A practical fixing problems workflow
Paste the original text, scan for highlighted blank entries, then compare suspicious characters with the plain version you expected. If the string is supposed to be ordinary English, retyping a suspicious word is often quicker than manually repairing individual Unicode codes.
Legitimate complexity exists
Emoji sequences, accented writing and non-Latin languages can contain combining marks or unfamiliar Unicode codes for perfectly normal reasons. Use the inspector to understand the data, not to label every unusual character as wrong.
Related tools
Pick the tool that does what you need.