Zero Width Character Detector
Zero-width characters take up no space at all, so they are impossible to spot by eye. Paste your text to find every zero width space, joiner, non-joiner, word joiner and byte-order mark, with counts, and copy a version with them removed.
The zero-width characters this tool detects
- U+200B Zero Width Space: marks a possible line break with no visible space. The most common hidden character in copied text.
- U+200C Zero Width Non-Joiner (ZWNJ): stops two letters from joining. Meaningful in Persian and several Indic scripts.
- U+200D Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ): joins characters, and builds combined emoji such as family and profession emoji.
- U+2060 Word Joiner: prevents a line break without adding space.
- U+FEFF Zero Width No-Break Space: also the byte-order mark (BOM) found at the start of some files.
- U+180E Mongolian Vowel Separator: no longer a space character in current Unicode, but still turns up in text.
The detector also flags the other invisible characters that often appear alongside them: direction marks, variation selectors, Unicode tags and look-alike spaces.
Why zero-width characters are used to hide watermarks
Because they are invisible and survive copy and paste, a sequence of zero-width characters can encode data inside normal-looking text: a fingerprint, an ID or a hidden message. Finding them is the first step to knowing whether text has been marked.
Before you remove them
The cleaner removes every zero-width character it finds. That is right for code, data and most prose, but ZWNJ and ZWJ are part of correct spelling in some languages, and ZWJ holds combined emoji together, so removing them can split an emoji into its parts. Check the cleaned copy if your text uses those.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type or see a zero width space?
You cannot see it in normal text. Paste the text here and the detector counts every U+200B, along with the other zero-width characters.
Why is there a zero width space in my code or spreadsheet?
It was almost always pasted in from a web page, a chat app, a PDF or an AI tool. It can make a formula fail, a key not match or a variable name look correct while being different.
Is a BOM (U+FEFF) a problem?
At the very start of a file it is a legitimate byte-order mark. Inside a sentence it is an invisible zero-width character, and the detector reports it.