Your text may contain characters you can't see. Zero-width spaces, non-breaking spaces, right-to-left marks, and dozens of other Unicode characters are completely invisible on screen but can wreak havoc in code, databases, URLs, and everyday text. They cause string comparisons to fail, break JSON parsing, corrupt CSV imports, and even enable phishing through homograph attacks. This Invisible Character Checker scans any text and reveals every hidden character with its exact position and Unicode code point.
How to Use the Checker
Paste any suspicious text and the tool will:
- Scan every character against a database of 30+ invisible Unicode characters
- Highlight invisible characters with colored markers showing their exact positions
- Identify each character by name and Unicode code point (e.g., U+200B)
- Count how many of each type were found
- Clean — click one button to strip all invisible characters at once
Common Invisible Characters
The most frequently found hidden characters:
- Zero-Width Space (U+200B): Has no visible width but is treated as a character. Common in copy-pasted text from websites
- Non-Breaking Space (U+00A0): Looks like a regular space but prevents line breaks. Very common in text from Word/Google Docs
- Zero-Width Joiner (U+200D): Used in emoji sequences (👨👩👧) but sometimes appears in regular text
- Right-to-Left Mark (U+200F): Forces text direction. Appears when mixing English with Arabic/Hebrew text
- Byte Order Mark (U+FEFF): Appears at the start of files, especially from Windows Notepad
- Soft Hyphen (U+00AD): A hyphenation hint that's invisible unless a line break occurs
Security Implications
Invisible characters can be used maliciously:
- Homograph attacks: Using look-alike characters to create fake URLs (e.g., using Cyrillic 'а' instead of Latin 'a')
- Trojan Source: Embedding RTL/LTR override characters in source code to make code appear different from what executes
- Data exfiltration: Encoding hidden messages in zero-width characters within innocent-looking text
- Input bypass: Inserting invisible characters to bypass content filters or keyword blockers
Step-by-Step Instructions
- 1Paste text into the input area.
- 2The scanner immediately highlights all invisible characters with colored markers.
- 3Review the character list showing name, Unicode code point, count, and positions.
- 4Click 'Remove All' to strip all invisible characters from the text.
- 5Copy the cleaned text to use it elsewhere.