About the Remove Non-ASCII Characters
ASCII is the original 128-character set used by computers: English letters, digits, basic punctuation and a few control characters. Some older software, file systems, payment gateways and APIs only accept ASCII, and fail or show garbled symbols when they meet anything else.
This tool removes every character outside that set, including emoji, curly “smart” quotes, long dashes and non-Latin scripts. With the conversion option ticked, accented letters are first reduced to their base letter, so “Crème Brûlée” becomes “Creme Brulee” instead of “Crme Brle”.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the input box.
- Leave the accent conversion option ticked to keep accented words readable.
- Click Remove Non-ASCII and copy the result.
Example
Crème brûlée costs €5 — “delicious” 😋
Creme brulee costs 5 delicious
When to use it
- Preparing names and addresses for systems that only accept ASCII.
- Cleaning CSV files before importing them into legacy software.
- Removing emoji and smart quotes from code, configuration files or SMS messages.
- Creating plain-text versions of international content.
Frequently asked questions
Why were my curly quotes removed?
Curly quotes (“ ” ‘ ’) are not part of ASCII. If you need straight quotes instead, replace them first with Find and Replace.
Does it work for non-Latin languages?
Characters from scripts such as Chinese, Arabic or Hindi are outside ASCII and are removed. The tool is best for mostly-English text.
Is the euro sign ASCII?
No. Symbols such as €, £ and © are outside ASCII and are removed.
Is the text I enter kept private?
Yes. The Remove Non-ASCII Characters runs entirely in your web browser, so your text is never uploaded to or stored on our servers. Like most free websites, TextForge shows ads from Google, which may use cookies. See our Privacy Policy for details.