How to remove zero-width characters
Text copied from a web page or a PDF often carries characters you cannot see. They are usually why a character count is off by a few, why a search never matches, or why pasted code throws a syntax error. Paste your text here and the tool lists exactly which invisible characters are present and how many of each, then deletes only the ones you selected.
You pick what gets deleted, for good reason. The zero width joiner (U+200D) is what fuses several pictures into one emoji, so deleting it splits a family emoji into separate people. The zero width non-joiner (U+200C) carries real meaning in Arabic and Indic scripts, where it controls letter shaping. Both are therefore off by default, and if you switch them on, the result says what the removal did.
Removed by default: zero width space (U+200B), word joiner (U+2060), zero width no-break space (U+FEFF, also used as a BOM) and Mongolian vowel separator (U+180E). Soft hyphen and the bidirectional control characters are optional. Lengths are counted in code points, and any character not on the list is left untouched.
Frequently asked questions
With the default settings, yes: the joiner that holds combined emoji together is kept. If you switch that option on yourself, the result tells you that the combinations were split apart.
This tool deletes every selected invisible character wherever it appears. If you only want to strip the single marker at the very start of a file, a dedicated BOM remover is the more precise choice.