Remove Punctuation

Removing punctuation is a common first step when preparing text for word counts, keyword lists, spreadsheets, search indexes or language analysis. This tool removes every punctuation mark Unicode knows about, in any language, while keeping the marks that belong inside words: apostrophes in contractions, hyphens in compounds and decimal points in numbers. You can also keep sentence endings, remove symbols such as $ and +, and see a count of every mark removed.

How to use this tool

1. Paste your text.
2. Choose what to keep: apostrophes in words, hyphens, numbers and, if you like, sentence endings.
3. Tick “also remove symbols” to drop $, +, =, © and similar characters too.
4. Copy the clean text; the table shows which marks were removed and how often.

Formula

Removed = every \p{P} character (and \p{S} if chosen), except the marks you keep

Unicode gives every character a general category. Punctuation (P) covers dashes, quotes, brackets, commas, full stops and also %, #, @, & and *. Symbols (S) cover currency, math signs, arrows, ©, ★ and emoji. An apostrophe is kept only between two letters, a hyphen only between two letters or digits, and a full stop or comma only between two digits, so marks at the edges of words still go. Emoji are always kept here; use the special character remover to delete them. Characters you list in “never remove” are always kept.

Example

The sample “Well,” she said, “it’s a well-known fact: 3.5% of people (at most) read the fine print!” — True? loses its quotes, commas, colon, %, brackets, exclamation and question marks and the dash, and becomes Well she said it’s a well-known fact 3.5 of people at most read the fine print True.