Copy-Paste Sanitizer
Clean and sanitize text copied from websites, PDFs, and documents - remove formatting, special characters, and extra whitespace
Quick Presets
Sanitization Options
All text processing is done locally in your browser.
About Copy-Paste Sanitizer
Copy-Paste Sanitizer is a powerful free online tool that cleans and sanitizes text copied from websites, PDFs, Word documents, and other sources. When you copy text from these sources, you often get unwanted formatting, hidden characters, smart quotes, special dashes, extra whitespace, and invisible Unicode characters that can cause problems.
This tool removes all that clutter and gives you clean, plain text that's perfect for pasting into forms, code editors, databases, emails, or any application where formatting causes issues. Whether you're a developer cleaning code snippets, a writer preparing content, or just someone who wants clean text, this tool makes it effortless.
All text processing is done entirely in your browser - your data never leaves your device, making this tool completely safe for sensitive documents and confidential content.
How to Use This Tool
- Copy text from any source (website, PDF, Word document, email, etc.)
- Paste it into the input area
- Choose sanitization options:
- Basic Clean: Removes formatting and normalizes whitespace (recommended for most use cases)
- Aggressive Clean: Removes everything including URLs, emails, and special characters
- Code-Friendly: Preserves code structure while removing problematic characters
- Plain Text Only: Strips everything except basic alphanumeric characters and punctuation
- Or customize by selecting individual options to control exactly what gets removed
- Click "Sanitize Text" to clean your text
- Copy the cleaned text or download it as a .txt file
Pro tip: Start with a preset and then adjust individual options for fine-tuned control.
Common Problems with Copied Text
When you copy text from various sources, you often encounter these issues:
Smart Quotes & Fancy Punctuation
Websites and Word documents use curly quotes (""), em dashes (—), and en dashes (–) that don't work well in plain text environments, code, or simple forms.
Hidden Formatting
Rich text contains invisible formatting tags that can break when pasted into text editors, databases, or code files.
Extra Whitespace
PDFs and websites often have excessive spaces, tabs, and blank lines that make text messy and harder to work with.
Hidden Characters
Zero-width spaces, byte order marks (BOM), and control characters that are invisible but cause validation errors and text processing issues.
Line Break Issues
Mixed line endings (CRLF from Windows, LF from Unix) can cause problems in text files and code repositories.
Special Unicode Characters
Unusual characters, symbols, and diacritical marks that don't display correctly in all systems or break text processing.
Common Use Cases
- Cleaning Code Snippets: Remove formatting from code copied from Stack Overflow, documentation sites, or tutorials
- Preparing Form Data: Clean text before pasting into web forms, surveys, or data entry fields
- Database Input: Sanitize text before importing into databases to prevent encoding issues
- Email Writing: Clean text copied from various sources before composing emails
- Content Writing: Remove formatting from research materials when writing articles or blog posts
- PDF Text Extraction: Clean messy text extracted from PDFs
- Word Document Cleanup: Remove Word-specific formatting for plain text use
- Social Media Posts: Clean text before posting to ensure proper formatting
- Translation Preparation: Clean source text before sending to translation tools
- Data Migration: Sanitize text data during system migrations
- API Payloads: Clean text before sending in JSON or XML API requests
- CSV File Preparation: Remove problematic characters from CSV data
Key Features
- One-Click Presets: Quick cleaning options for common scenarios (Basic, Aggressive, Code-Friendly, Plain Text)
- Granular Control: Choose exactly which elements to remove with individual toggle options
- Smart Quote Normalization: Converts curly quotes to straight quotes automatically
- Dash Normalization: Converts em dashes and en dashes to regular hyphens
- Whitespace Cleanup: Removes excessive spaces, tabs, and blank lines
- Hidden Character Removal: Detects and removes invisible Unicode characters
- Real-time Statistics: See character counts and reduction percentage
- Copy & Download: One-click copying or download as .txt file
- Completely Private: All processing done in browser - no data sent to servers
- Works Offline: Use after initial page load without internet
- Fast Processing: Instant results even with large text
Privacy & Security
Your privacy and security are paramount. This Copy-Paste Sanitizer tool processes all text entirely in your web browser using JavaScript.
- Zero data transmission - nothing is sent to any server
- No logging or tracking of your text content
- Works completely offline after initial page load
- Safe for confidential documents, proprietary content, and sensitive data
- No cookies or storage of your input
- Open source - code can be inspected
Perfect for cleaning sensitive information like customer data, internal documents, proprietary code, legal content, and confidential communications.
Understanding Presets
Basic Clean
The most commonly used preset. Removes formatting, normalizes quotes and dashes, removes hidden characters and extra whitespace. Perfect for most copy-paste scenarios.
Best for: General text cleaning, form inputs, email composition
Aggressive Clean
Removes everything: formatting, URLs, emails, special characters, hidden characters, and excessive whitespace. Gives you the cleanest possible text.
Best for: Data migration, database imports, strict validation requirements
Code-Friendly
Preserves code structure (indentation, line breaks) while removing problematic characters like smart quotes and hidden characters that break code.
Best for: Code snippets from Stack Overflow, documentation, tutorials
Plain Text Only
Strips everything except basic letters, numbers, and common punctuation. The most aggressive option for when you need absolutely clean text.
Best for: Legacy systems, strict character restrictions, maximum compatibility
Before & After Examples
Example 1: Cleaning Website Text
Before (with smart quotes and extra whitespace):
"This is a test" with fancy—quotes
After (clean):
"This is a test" with fancy-quotes
Example 2: Cleaning Code from Stack Overflow
Before (with hidden characters):
const hello = "world"; // Contains ZWSP
After (clean):
const hello = "world"; // Clean code
Example 3: Cleaning PDF Text
PDF text often comes with excessive line breaks and spacing. This tool normalizes it to readable, properly formatted text.
What Gets Removed?
Depending on your selected options, this tool can remove:
- Curly quotes: "", '' → straight quotes: "", ''
- Em dash: — → hyphen: -
- En dash: – → hyphen: -
- Ellipsis: … → three dots: ...
- Zero-width spaces (ZWSP, ZWNJ, ZWJ)
- Byte Order Mark (BOM)
- Control characters (ASCII 0-31)
- RTL/LTR direction markers
- Multiple consecutive spaces → single space
- Tabs converted to spaces
- Multiple blank lines → single blank line
- Leading/trailing whitespace on lines
- URLs (http://, https://, www.)
- Email addresses
- Special Unicode characters and symbols
- Diacritical marks (accents)
Pro Tips
- Start with Basic Clean: It handles 90% of use cases and is the safest option
- Preview before committing: Always review the cleaned text before using it
- Use Code-Friendly for programming: It preserves indentation and code structure
- Test with sample data: When cleaning large amounts of text, test with a small sample first
- Keep the original: Always keep a copy of the original text before sanitizing
- Combine with other tools: Use with our Hidden Character Cleaner for maximum cleaning power
- Bookmark for quick access: Add this tool to your bookmarks for instant access when needed
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a copy-paste sanitizer?
A copy-paste sanitizer is a tool that cleans text copied from websites, PDFs, Word documents, and other sources by removing unwanted formatting, hidden characters, smart quotes, extra whitespace, and special characters. It gives you clean, plain text that's safe to paste anywhere without issues.
Why do I need to sanitize copied text?
You need to sanitize copied text because sources like websites, PDFs, and Word documents include hidden formatting, smart quotes, special dashes, invisible Unicode characters, and excessive whitespace that can cause problems when pasted into forms, code editors, databases, or other applications.
Is my text sent to any server?
No, absolutely not. All text sanitization happens entirely in your web browser using JavaScript. Your data never leaves your device, making this tool completely safe for sensitive documents, proprietary code, customer data, and confidential content.
What's the difference between the presets?
Basic Clean removes formatting and normalizes text (best for general use). Aggressive Clean removes everything including URLs and special characters (best for databases). Code-Friendly preserves code structure (best for programming). Plain Text Only strips everything except basic characters (best for maximum compatibility).
Will this damage my text content?
No, the tool only removes formatting and special characters based on your selected options. The actual words and content remain unchanged. However, if your text intentionally uses special characters or formatting, those will be removed, so always review the output before using it.
Can I clean code snippets?
Yes, use the Code-Friendly preset which removes problematic characters like smart quotes and hidden Unicode characters while preserving indentation, line breaks, and code structure. Perfect for cleaning code copied from Stack Overflow, documentation, or tutorials.
What are smart quotes and why remove them?
Smart quotes (curly quotes like "" and '') are typographically correct but cause problems in plain text, code, and many applications. Straight quotes ("" and '') work universally. This tool converts smart quotes to straight quotes for maximum compatibility.
How do I handle text from PDFs?
PDF text often has excessive line breaks and spacing. Use Basic Clean preset which normalizes whitespace and removes hidden characters. The text will be reformatted into properly structured paragraphs and sentences.
Can this remove URLs and email addresses?
Yes, enable the "Remove URLs" and "Remove email addresses" options, or use the Aggressive Clean preset which includes these options. Useful when cleaning text for databases or when you want to remove contact information.
What happens to line breaks?
Line breaks are normalized to LF (Unix-style) when "Normalize line breaks" is enabled. The tool also removes excessive blank lines (more than 2) while preserving paragraph structure. This ensures consistent formatting across all platforms.
Is there a character limit?
No, there's no hard character limit. However, very large texts (hundreds of thousands of characters) may take a moment to process. The tool handles typical copy-paste scenarios (up to tens of thousands of characters) instantly.
Can I use this tool offline?
Yes, after the initial page load, the tool works completely offline. All processing happens in your browser without any internet connection required. Perfect for working with sensitive data in secure environments.