Remove Punctuation
This tool removes punctuation from text using the Unicode punctuation categories rather than a hand-written list of ASCII marks. That distinction matters as soon as your text is not English: Spanish ¿ and ¡, Chinese 。and 、, Arabic ، and ؛, and the curly quotes that word processors insert automatically are all recognised here and all missed by the usual A–Z pattern. Symbols such as currency signs and maths operators form a separate Unicode category and can be kept or removed independently. You can also list specific characters to preserve — apostrophes and hyphens are the usual ones, since removing them turns "don't" into "dont" and "well-known" into "wellknown".
How it works
Removes punctuation across every alphabet, not just ASCII — Spanish ¿ and ¡, Chinese 。and 、, and curly quotes are all recognised, which a simple A–Z pattern would miss entirely.
Symbols such as currency signs and maths operators are a separate category in Unicode; untick the option to keep them. Replacing with a space rather than nothing avoids gluing words together where punctuation was doing the separating.
Everything runs in your browser — nothing you paste is sent to a server.
0 characters removed.
Why an ASCII list is not enough
The usual approach is a pattern listing the punctuation on a US keyboard. It works until the text contains any of these, all of which are extremely common:
- Curly quotes and apostrophes — inserted automatically by every word processor.
- En and em dashes, and the ellipsis character.
- Spanish inverted marks
¿and¡. - CJK punctuation
。、《》. - Arabic comma
،and semicolon؛.
Unicode assigns every one of those to a punctuation category, so matching by category catches them all without a list to maintain.
Keeping the marks that carry meaning
Apostrophes and hyphens are punctuation, but they are also part of words. Removing them changes
don't to dont and well-known to wellknown, which damages word
counts and search. List them in the keep box when the output is going to be read or analysed.
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove punctuation?
Paste your text into the left panel. Punctuation is stripped immediately and the result appears on the right.
Does it handle non-English punctuation?
Yes. It uses the Unicode punctuation categories, so Spanish ¿, Chinese 。, Arabic ، and the curly quotes word processors insert are all removed. A simple A–Z pattern misses every one of them.
How do I keep apostrophes and hyphens?
Type them into the "Keep these characters" box. Without them, "don't" becomes "dont" and "well-known" becomes "wellknown", which is rarely what you want.
What counts as a symbol rather than punctuation?
Currency signs, maths operators and similar marks are a separate Unicode category. They are removed by default; untick the option to keep them.
Why replace with a space instead of nothing?
Punctuation often separates words. Removing an em dash between two words with no space would glue them together, so replacing with a space is safer for text you intend to read or count.
Is my text uploaded?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser.
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