About the Remove Punctuation from Text
Paste your text and instantly remove all punctuation marks and symbols. The tool uses Unicode categories, so it works with accented letters, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic and every other script — not just ASCII. Choose to keep apostrophes inside words like it's and don't, keep hyphens in compound words like well-known and COVID-19, remove digits, and collapse extra spaces left behind after stripping. You can also list specific characters that should stay, such as @ or #.
Updated October 2026
How to use the Remove Punctuation from Text
- 1Paste or type your text.
- 2Choose which punctuation to keep (apostrophes, hyphens).
- 3Optionally type characters that should not be removed.
- 4Tick 'Also remove digits' if you want numbers gone too.
- 5Copy the cleaned text with one click.
A quick example
Take the sentence: Well—known, isn't it? Costs $5 + 10%. With the default options the result is: Well known isn't it Costs 5 10. The long dash became a space, the apostrophe inside isn't stayed, the comma, question mark, dollar sign, plus sign, percent sign and full stop were removed and the extra spaces were collapsed. Turn on Also remove digits and the 5 and 10 go too. Add $ to the characters to keep and the dollar sign stays.
Why remove punctuation from text
Punctuation removal is a common step in natural language processing, data cleaning and text analysis. Word frequency counters and search indexes work better with clean text because commas and periods no longer attach to words. Students cleaning up OCR scans, researchers preparing corpora and writers reformatting notes all benefit from a quick punctuation stripper that handles every language correctly.
Choosing what to keep
Not all punctuation is noise. Apostrophes in contractions carry meaning — don't and dont are different words in a search. Hyphens in compound words like well-known glue two words together. The keep options let you strip the clutter while keeping the marks that matter. If your text uses hashtags or at-mentions, add # and @ to the keep list so they survive the cleaning.
After cleaning your text
- Use the Word Counter to count words now that punctuation is gone.
- The Word Frequency Counter is ideal for analysing word usage in clean text.
- The Remove Duplicate Lines tool removes repeated lines from a cleaned list.
- The Find and Replace Text tool can handle more targeted changes.
Features
- Removes all Unicode punctuation (\p{P}) and symbols (\p{S})
- Works with any language and script, not just English
- Option to keep apostrophes in contractions (it's, don't)
- Option to keep hyphens between letters and digits (well-known, COVID-19)
- Dashes and slashes between words become spaces, so and/or does not become andor
- Custom keep-list for characters like @ or #
- Optionally remove digits
- Collapses extra spaces left after stripping
- Shows character counts by type
- Runs entirely in your browser
Frequently asked questions
Does it remove punctuation from all languages?
Yes. The tool uses Unicode character categories to identify punctuation and symbols, so it works with French accents, German umlauts, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and any other script. Letters in every language are kept.
Will it remove apostrophes in words like don't?
Only if you uncheck Keep apostrophes in words. By default the tool keeps an apostrophe that sits between two letters, so don't stays as don't. Apostrophes at the start or end of a word, such as quotes, are still removed.
Can I keep specific symbols like @ or #?
Yes. Type the characters you want to keep in the Characters to keep field. Each one you add is preserved in the output while all other punctuation and symbols are stripped.
What counts as a symbol versus punctuation?
Unicode separates punctuation (commas, periods, brackets, dashes) from symbols (currency signs, math operators, emoji-style marks). This tool removes both categories by default, so $ and + are stripped just like commas and periods.
Why are there extra spaces after removing punctuation?
When a punctuation mark between words is removed, the spaces around it can double up. Turn on Collapse extra spaces (on by default) and the tool merges runs of spaces into a single space and trims leading spaces from each line.
What happens to dashes and slashes between words?
By default a dash, slash, underscore or ellipsis between two words is replaced with a space, so well—known becomes well known and and/or becomes and or, instead of running the words together. Untick the option Turn dashes and slashes between words into spaces if you would rather they were simply deleted.
Can I also remove numbers?
Yes. Tick Also remove digits and all Unicode digits (0–9 and digits in other scripts) are stripped along with the punctuation.