What Is a Plain Text Converter?

Quick answer: A plain text converter strips formatting from copied text so only ordinary characters remain: no fonts, colours, bold, links, or hidden codes. It also swaps look-alike characters such as curly quotes and long dashes for their simple keyboard versions, so “It’s ready” — draft becomes “It’s ready” – draft.

Plain text means characters only, the kind stored in a .txt file, as opposed to rich text, which also carries styling.

Copying from Word, Google Docs, websites and PDFs brings unwanted baggage: fonts and spacing that clash with your page, non-breaking spaces that stop searches matching, zero-width characters that break usernames and passwords, and curly quotes that crash code and CSV imports. Pasting into the box above already removes fonts and colours. The toolbar then clears the invisible extras, the Rich Paste Box converts formatted content while keeping its structure, and the inspector shows exactly which hidden characters were in your text.

• 7 Clean-up options
• 12 Hidden character types detected
• 2 Markup strippers: HTML and Markdown
• 6 Plain text formats

How Do You Remove Formatting From Text?

1. Paste it in: Into the main box, or the Rich Paste Box to keep bullets and links.
2. Pick the clean-ups: Quotes, dashes, spaces, hidden characters, blank lines, emoji.
3. Press Clean text: The note confirms when no hidden characters remain.
4. Paste it anywhere: Your CMS, email, form, spreadsheet, or code editor.

Text copied from a PDF breaks mid-sentence? Join it with the remove line breaks tool.

Which Hidden Characters Cause Problems?

Character	Where it comes from	What it breaks
Non-breaking space	Word, web pages, PDFs	Search and replace, spreadsheet formulas, code
Zero-width space or joiner	Websites, chat apps, copied usernames	Passwords, logins, URL slugs, duplicate checks
Byte order mark	Files saved by some editors	The first column of CSV files, scripts
Soft hyphen	Justified text in documents	Search, spell check, word counts
Curly quotes	Word processors and phones	Code, JSON, CSV, command lines
En and em dashes	Autocorrect replacing —	Command-line options, product codes
Tabs and double spaces	Spreadsheets and old documents	Alignment and comparisons

For deeper spacing fixes, try the remove extra spaces tool.

How Do You Remove Formatting in Word and Google Docs?

App	Clear formatting	Paste without formatting
Microsoft Word	Home tab, Clear All Formatting button, or Ctrl + Space for characters and Ctrl + Q for paragraphs	Paste Options, Keep Text Only
Google Docs	Format, Clear formatting, or Ctrl + \	Ctrl + Shift + V
Chrome, Edge and most web apps	Not available	Ctrl + Shift + V
Mac apps such as Pages and Mail	Format menu options vary	Option + Shift + Cmd + V (Paste and Match Style)
Outlook	Format Text, Clear All Formatting	Paste Options, Keep Text Only

These shortcuts remove fonts and colours, but most of them keep non-breaking spaces, zero-width characters and curly quotes. Run the text through the cleaner when it is going into code, a spreadsheet, a form or a search box.

What Is the Difference Between Plain Text and Rich Text?

Rich text stores characters together with styling: fonts, sizes, colours, bold, italics, links, lists and tables. Word documents, emails and web pages are rich text. Plain text stores characters only, which makes it universal: any program, from a code editor to a text message, reads it the same way. Converting rich text to plain text loses the styling but keeps the words, and the Rich Paste Box keeps the structure as simple markers, turning list items into dashes or numbers and table cells into tab-separated columns.

When Should You Convert Text to Plain Text?

• Publishing: paste articles into WordPress without stray styles and spans.
• Email: send text that looks the same in every inbox.
• Forms and logins: remove hidden characters that make input fail.
• Coding: fix curly quotes and dashes copied from documentation.
• Spreadsheets: clean cells so formulas and lookups match.
• AI and translation tools: feed them clean, consistent input.

Plain Text Terms

Plain text

Characters with no styling information.

Rich text

Text stored with fonts, colours, links and layout.

Non-breaking space

A space that stops a line from breaking, often invisible trouble in searches.

Zero-width space

A character with no width that hides between letters.

Smart quotes

Curly typographic quotes that replace straight ‘ and “.

Markdown

A light markup using symbols like ** and # for formatting.

Swap specific words across the cleaned text with the find and replace tool.

What Can This Text Cleaner Do?

One-click clean

Seven switchable fixes.

Basic characters

Accents and symbols simplified.

Markdown

Headings, bold, and links stripped.

HTML

Tags removed, lines kept.

Rich paste

Bullets, links, and tables kept.

Inspector

Every hidden character marked.

A login or search keeps failing on copied text?

Check it for invisible characters and remove them in one press.

👁 Open the Inspector 

Formatting Still Showing After Pasting?

Problem	Cause	Fix
Bullets disappeared	The text was pasted into the plain box	Use the Rich Paste Box with Keep bullets ticked
Emoji were removed	Remove emoji or Plain ASCII only was used	Untick Remove emoji and press Clean text again
Accents vanished	Plain ASCII only converts é to e	Use Clean text instead
Paragraphs merged	Join into one paragraph was pressed	Press Undo
Underscores in names were removed	Remove Markdown treats _text_ as italics	Only strip Markdown from real Markdown text

Curious about invisible characters? The invisible text generator explains and creates them.

Tips for Clean Copy and Paste

Learn one shortcut

Ctrl + Shift + V pastes without formatting in most browsers and web apps.

Clean before code

Always straighten quotes before pasting into a terminal or config file.

Check copied passwords

A hidden space at the end is the most common reason they fail.

Keep a clean master

Write drafts in plain text and add formatting in the final tool.

After cleaning, change the capitalization with the case converter.

Plain Text Converter FAQ

What is a plain text converter?

A tool that strips styling and hidden codes from copied text, leaving only simple characters.

How do I remove formatting from text?

Drop it in the main box, then hit Clean text. Fonts vanish as you paste, and the toolbar deletes leftover invisible marks.

What is plain text?

Characters only, with no fonts, colours, links, or layout, like the contents of a .txt file.

Why does copied text keep its formatting?

Programs copy rich text along with plain text, and many editors paste the rich version by default.

How do I paste without formatting?

Use Ctrl + Shift + V in most browsers and Google Docs, or Paste Options, Keep Text Only in Word.

How do I remove formatting in Word?

Select the text and press the Clear All Formatting button on the Home tab, or Ctrl + Space and Ctrl + Q.

How do I clear formatting in Google Docs?

Select the text and choose Format, Clear formatting, or press Ctrl + Backslash.

What are hidden characters?

Characters you cannot see, such as zero-width spaces, non-breaking spaces, and soft hyphens.

Which invisible characters does the inspector detect?

Twelve kinds, including zero-width joiners, non-breaking and special spaces, soft hyphens, tabs, curly quotes, and trailing spaces, each counted and highlighted in yellow.

Why does my password fail when I paste it?

Copied text often carries a hidden space or zero-width character; clean it before pasting.

What are smart quotes and why remove them?

Curly quotes that word processors insert. Code, JSON, and CSV need straight quotes instead.

Can I keep bullet points when removing formatting?

Yes. Paste into the Rich Paste Box with Keep bullets and numbers ticked.

Can I keep links as text?

Yes. Tick Keep link addresses in brackets in the Rich Paste Box.

How do I remove HTML tags from text?

Press Remove HTML tags; tags go, line breaks stay, and common entities are decoded.

How do I remove Markdown symbols?

Press Remove Markdown to drop heading marks, asterisks, link brackets, and list markers.

What does Plain ASCII only do?

It keeps basic English keyboard characters, turning accented letters into plain ones and dropping symbols and emoji.

Can I remove emoji from text?

Yes. Tick Remove emoji, or use the Without Emoji card.

Does cleaning change my words?

No. Only spacing, punctuation look-alikes, and invisible characters change, unless you choose ASCII mode.

Is the plain text converter free?

Yes. Cleaning, rich paste, and the inspector are free, with no account.

Is my text uploaded?

No. Everything is cleaned inside your browser.

Can I clean text on mobile?

Yes. Paste, clean, and copy all work on mobile, though the rich paste box behaves best on a computer.

Convert to Plain Text

Rich → plain

No fonts, no hidden characters, no curly quotes. ¶ Clean My Text