Unicode Character Inspector
Break any text into its Unicode code points and see the hex value, UTF-8 bytes, HTML entity and escape forms for each. Flags invisible, bidirectional and homoglyph characters that break parsers and reviews.
Last reviewed by the Radiatus Cloud team
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The characters you cannot see are the ones that hurt
A surprising share of "impossible" bugs come down to a character that renders as nothing. A zero width space pasted from a design document breaks a string comparison. A non breaking space copied from a spreadsheet defeats a trim. A byte order mark at the start of a PHP file emits output before the headers. A right to left override in a filename makes an executable look like a text file. None of these are visible in a diff, and none of them are visible in most editors either.
Code points, code units and bytes
Three different counts get called length. A string has code points, which is what a human means by characters; UTF-16 code units, which is what JavaScript string length returns and where an emoji counts as two; and UTF-8 bytes, which is what a database column limit and a network payload measure. An emoji with a skin tone modifier can be one grapheme, two code points, four UTF-16 units and eight UTF-8 bytes at the same time, and every one of those numbers is correct for a different question.
What the inspector reports
Every code point is listed with its hexadecimal value, its UTF-8 byte sequence, the HTML entity, and the JavaScript, CSS and URL escape forms so you can paste an unambiguous representation into code. Characters that are invisible, that change text direction, or that are common lookalikes for ASCII are called out explicitly, because those are the ones worth removing before the text reaches a parser.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my emoji count as two characters?
JavaScript strings are UTF-16, and any code point above U+FFFF is stored as a surrogate pair, so length returns 2. This tool counts real code points separately from UTF-16 units so both numbers are visible.
What is a homoglyph and why flag it?
A homoglyph is a character that looks like another, such as Cyrillic a in place of Latin a. They are used to make a malicious domain or package name visually identical to a trusted one, and they defeat review by eye. Flagged characters here are common ASCII lookalikes.
Does it show the official Unicode character name?
It shows names for the characters that matter most in practice, such as the various spaces, joiners, direction controls and the byte order mark. A complete name database is several megabytes, which is not worth downloading for a browser tool.
What does the strip option remove?
Zero width characters, the byte order mark and bidirectional control characters, and it converts non breaking spaces to ordinary spaces. That is the usual cleanup before text is committed to a repository or a database.
Are combining characters handled?
They are listed as the separate code points they actually are. An accented letter typed as base plus combining mark looks identical to the precomposed form but is a different string, which is exactly the kind of mismatch this view makes visible.
Privacy & Security
Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
How to Use
Paste or type text to see a per character breakdown. Invisible and risky characters are highlighted.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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