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Remove Punctuation
Paste your text to remove punctuation instantly. Strip every mark, including curly quotes, dashes and other Unicode punctuation, or choose exactly which characters to delete while keeping apostrophes in words and decimal points in numbers.
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How to use the Remove Punctuation
- Paste or type your text in the left box. The cleaned text appears on the right instantly.
- Choose what to remove: all punctuation, or switch to Selected marks and click the characters you want gone.
- Set the smart options: keep apostrophes in words, hyphens in words, or decimal points in numbers.
- Decide how to replace each mark: with nothing or with a space, and whether to tidy extra spaces.
- Copy or download the result. The summary shows exactly which marks were removed.
Punctuation vs symbols: what gets removed
Unicode sorts characters into categories. All punctuation removes the Punctuation category (code P), which covers far more than the keys on an English keyboard: curly quotes, dashes, the ellipsis and marks used in Spanish, French, Chinese and Japanese text. Characters such as $ and + are classed as symbols (code S), so they stay unless you tick Also remove symbols. Emoji are symbols too, but the tool always keeps them in that mode.
| Group | Examples | Removed by |
|---|---|---|
| Sentence punctuation | . , ; : ! ? … | All punctuation |
| Quotes and apostrophes | ' " ‘ ’ “ ” « » ‹ › | All punctuation |
| Brackets | ( ) [ ] { } | All punctuation |
| Dashes and connectors | - ‐ – — _ | All punctuation |
| Other ASCII marks | / \ @ # & * % | All punctuation |
| Non-English marks | ¿ ¡ 、 。 「 」 ؟ · | All punctuation |
| Math and currency symbols | + = < > $ € £ ¥ ^ ~ | ` | Also remove symbols |
| Other symbols | © ® ™ ° § ¶ | Also remove symbols (§ and ¶ are punctuation) |
When to keep apostrophes, hyphens and decimals
Blindly deleting every mark can change meaning: it's becomes its, re-cover becomes recover and 3.5 becomes 35. The smart options look at the characters on both sides of each mark. An apostrophe between two letters, a hyphen between two letters or digits, or a period or comma between two digits is kept, while the same mark at the start or end of a word (a closing quote, a full stop, a dash between spaces) is removed. This is what you want for word counts, keyword lists, text analysis and preparing text for search or machine learning.
- Word lists and SEO keywords: keep apostrophes and hyphens, remove everything else.
- Numbers and prices: keep decimal points so values stay correct.
- Usernames, tags or file names: replace marks with a space, then use the Case Converter or URL Slug Generator.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as punctuation?
In All punctuation mode the tool removes every character that Unicode classifies as punctuation: periods, commas, colons, semicolons, question and exclamation marks, quotes (straight and curly), apostrophes, brackets, hyphens and dashes, slashes, the ellipsis, the at sign, the ampersand, the asterisk, the number sign and many marks from other languages such as ¿ ¡ « » 、 and 。. Symbols such as $ % + = are a separate Unicode category and are only removed if you tick Also remove symbols.
Will it break contractions like don't and it's?
Not with the default settings. Keep apostrophes inside words leaves an apostrophe that sits between two letters, so don't stays don't, while quote marks around words are removed. Untick it to get dont and its.
Can I keep decimal points in numbers?
Yes. Keep decimal points in numbers leaves a period or comma that sits between two digits, so 3.14, 1,000 and 2.5 stay intact while the period at the end of a sentence is removed.
Should punctuation be replaced with a space or with nothing?
Replacing with nothing is best for normal text, because punctuation usually sits next to a space already. Replacing with a space is useful for words joined by punctuation, such as red/green or one-two, so they do not merge into one word. Tidy spaces then removes any doubled spaces.
Are emoji removed?
No. Emoji are not punctuation. Even when Also remove symbols is on, emoji are kept. Use the Remove Special Characters tool if you want to strip emoji as well.
Is my text uploaded?
No. All processing happens in your browser with JavaScript, so your text never leaves your device.
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