complete.tools

Remove Letters & Characters

Strip chosen characters, all digits, all letters, all punctuation and symbols, or all spaces from any text.

What this tool does

Strip chosen characters, all digits, all letters, all punctuation and symbols, or all spaces from any text. You fill in these fields: Text and What to remove. Tick boxes adjust the calculation. Some fields appear only for certain choices. Some fields are optional. It shows text with characters removed, characters removed, characters left, and characters before.

Inputs

  • Text: Longer text, up to 100000 characters.
  • What to remove: Switch between: Characters I choose, Digits, Letters, Punctuation and symbols, Spaces and line breaks.
  • Characters to remove: Text, up to 200 characters. Shown only when "What to remove" is Characters I choose. Optional. Every character you type here is removed from the text, wherever it appears. A space counts as a character.
  • Ignore upper and lower case: A tick box, off to start. Shown only when "What to remove" is Characters I choose. When ticked, typing a also removes A.

How to use

  1. Type the text.
  2. Choose an option for "What to remove".
  3. If "What to remove" is Characters I choose, type the characters to remove. This one is optional.
  4. If "What to remove" is Characters I choose, tick "Ignore upper and lower case" if it applies.
  5. Read the result: text with characters removed, characters removed, characters left, and characters before. It appears once every required field has a valid value.
  6. Use the copy button to copy the text.

Worked examples

Example 1. Inputs:

  • Text: "Order #42 shipped on 2024-05-17, qty 3."
  • What to remove: Digits

Results:

  • Characters removed: 11
  • Characters left: 28
  • Characters before: 39

How this is worked out: Digits removed: 4 and 2 in 42, 2 0 2 4 in 2024, 0 5 in 05, 1 7 in 17, 3 at the end = 2 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 11. Input has 39 characters (Order 5, space 1, #42 3, space 1, shipped 7, space 1, on 2, space 1, 2024-05-17, 11, space 1, qty 3, space 1, 3. 2), so 39 - 11 = 28 remain. Result read off by hand: Order # shipped on --, qty .

Example 2. Inputs:

  • Text: "Café 42, naïve!"
  • What to remove: Letters

Results:

  • Characters removed: 9
  • Characters left: 6
  • Characters before: 15

How this is worked out: Letters of any script are removed, accented ones included: C a f é = 4 and n a ï v e = 5, so 9. Input is 15 characters (Café 4, space 1, 42, 3, space 1, naïve 5, ! 1), leaving 6: space, 4, 2, comma, space, !.

Example 3. Inputs:

  • Text: "Education Is Everything OK"
  • What to remove: Characters I choose
  • Characters to remove: "aeiou"
  • Ignore upper and lower case: Yes

Results:

  • Characters removed: 10
  • Characters left: 16
  • Characters before: 26

How this is worked out: Vowels in any case: Education E u a i o = 5, Is I = 1, Everything E e i = 3, OK O = 1, total 10. Input is 26 characters (9 + 3 + 11 + 1 line break + 2), so 16 remain. The line break is kept.

Example 4. Inputs:

  • Text: "Every EVERY e!"
  • What to remove: Characters I choose
  • Characters to remove: "e"
  • Ignore upper and lower case: No

Results:

  • Characters removed: 2
  • Characters left: 12
  • Characters before: 14

How this is worked out: With case respected only lowercase e goes: the third letter of Every, and the lone e = 2. The capital E and the letters of EVERY stay. Input is 14 characters, 12 remain.

Limitations

  • Characters are matched one Unicode code point at a time, so removing a base letter from a decomposed accent can leave the accent behind in the Characters I choose mode.
  • The counts are code points, so an emoji built from several code points counts as more than one.
  • Digits means the decimal digits 0 to 9 of any script. Superscript digits, fractions and Roman numeral signs are not removed.
  • Punctuation and symbols mode removes the visible parts of an emoji but can leave behind the invisible joining characters that some emoji contain.
  • Text longer than 100,000 characters is not accepted.

FAQs

Q: Does it remove accented letters when I choose Letters?
A: Yes. Letters means letters of any script, so e with an accent, Greek and Cyrillic letters are removed along with a to z.
Q: What counts as a symbol?
A: Punctuation and symbols as defined by the Unicode character categories. That includes commas, quotation marks, brackets, the underscore, currency signs such as $, and maths signs such as + and =. Most emoji are symbols in Unicode, so they are removed too.
Q: Is capitalisation respected when I type my own characters?
A: Yes, unless you tick Ignore upper and lower case. With it ticked, typing a removes both a and A.
Q: Are line breaks kept?
A: Yes, in every mode except Spaces and line breaks, which removes spaces, tabs and line breaks together. The box for your own characters is a single line, so a line break cannot be typed into it.

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