About the Remove Punctuation
Punctuation is essential for reading but often gets in the way of analysis. Word-frequency counts, keyword research, text-matching and machine-learning datasets usually work better on text without full stops, commas, quotes, brackets or dashes.
This tool removes every character classed as punctuation in Unicode, so it also handles marks from other languages such as « », ¿ and 。. Apostrophes can be kept so that contractions like “don’t” stay as one word. Symbols such as $, % and + are not punctuation and are left alone.
How to use it
- Paste your text.
- Choose whether to keep apostrophes.
- Click Remove Punctuation and copy the result.
Example
"Wait," she said. "Don't go, not yet!" (It's 5:30 p.m.)
Wait she said Don't go not yet It's 530 pm
When to use it
- Preparing text for word-frequency or keyword analysis.
- Creating clean datasets for machine learning.
- Normalising phrases before comparing them.
- Making hashtags or simple identifiers from sentences.
Frequently asked questions
Are symbols like $ and % removed?
No. They are symbols rather than punctuation. Use Remove Special Characters to remove those too.
Why did the time 5:30 become 530?
The colon is a punctuation mark, so it is removed. Keep this in mind for times, decimals and ratios.
Does it work for languages other than English?
Yes. It uses the Unicode definition of punctuation, which covers most writing systems.
Is the text I enter kept private?
Yes. The Remove Punctuation 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.