Text Formatter Online
A free online text formatter with six cleaning operations you can mix and match: trim whitespace, collapse spaces, remove blank lines, join into one paragraph, strip HTML tags, and deduplicate lines. Tick what you need and the formatted result appears instantly — nothing leaves your browser.
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What each formatting option does
Trim line whitespace
Removes leading spaces, trailing spaces, and tabs from the beginning and end of every line. Useful when pasting from structured sources (spreadsheets, PDFs, code editors) that introduce invisible whitespace around content. This operation does not affect spaces in the middle of a line, only at the edges.
Collapse multiple spaces
Replaces any sequence of two or more consecutive spaces with a single space. This fixes double-spacing left over from typewriter conventions, inconsistent copy-paste from PDFs, or data exports where fields are space-padded. Only horizontal spaces are collapsed — newlines are preserved.
Remove blank lines
Removes any line in your text that contains only whitespace (or nothing at all), leaving only lines with actual content. Useful for cleaning up exported data where blank rows appear between records, or for compressing multi-paragraph text before importing into a system that doesn't tolerate blank lines.
Join into one paragraph
Joins all lines together into a single continuous paragraph, separated by spaces. Lines that are empty or whitespace-only are dropped. This is useful when copying text from PDFs, where artificial line breaks are inserted at column width, breaking what should be continuous prose across dozens of separate lines.
Strip HTML tags
Removes all HTML and XML tags — anything between < and >
— leaving only the plain text content. Useful when copying content from a web page
or CMS that exports with HTML markup, or when working with pasted content that carried
over formatting tags you don't need. Note: this operation removes the tag characters but
does not decode HTML entities (e.g. & stays as &).
Deduplicate lines
Removes repeated lines, keeping only the first occurrence of each unique line. Comparison is case-sensitive: "Apple" and "apple" are treated as distinct values. Useful for cleaning up lists, removing duplicate entries from exported data, or collapsing repeated lines in log output.
All six options can be applied simultaneously. The operations are applied in the order listed: strip HTML first, then trim, then collapse spaces, then remove blanks, then join, then deduplicate — so you can combine them without unexpected interactions.
Common use cases
- Cleaning PDF extracts: PDFs often introduce line breaks at arbitrary column widths when text is selected and copied. Use "Join into one paragraph" + "Trim line whitespace" to restore continuous prose.
- Preparing data for import: Before importing a text list into a database or CRM, use "Remove blank lines" + "Deduplicate" + "Trim line whitespace" to get a clean, consistent set of records.
- Removing web page formatting: When copying content from websites or CMS previews, HTML tags often come along. "Strip HTML tags" removes them instantly.
- Fixing copy-pasted text: Text pasted from Word documents, Slack, or email clients often carries extra spaces or inconsistent whitespace. "Trim line whitespace" + "Collapse multiple spaces" fixes both.
- Cleaning log output: Log files with repeated warning lines can be deduplicated to show only distinct messages, making them faster to scan.
Frequently asked questions
What is an online text formatter?
A tool that cleans and restructures plain text without requiring a word processor or code editor. This formatter handles common cleaning tasks: trimming whitespace, collapsing spaces, removing blank lines, stripping HTML, joining text into a single paragraph, and deduplicating repeated lines.
Can I apply multiple formatting options at the same time?
Yes. Tick any combination of options and they all apply simultaneously. The output updates instantly as you change selections. The operations are applied in a fixed order to avoid conflicts: HTML stripping → trim → collapse spaces → remove blanks → join → deduplicate.
Does "Strip HTML tags" also decode HTML entities like & or ?
No — this tool removes HTML tags (the <tag> elements) but does not decode HTML entities. If your text contains &, , or similar, those will remain as-is. HTML entity decoding is a separate operation that may be added in a future update.
Is "Deduplicate" case-sensitive?
Yes. "Apple" and "apple" are treated as two different lines, so both are kept. Only exact character-for-character duplicates are removed. If you want case-insensitive deduplication, convert all text to lowercase first (using the case converter), then deduplicate.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. All formatting runs in your browser. Your text is never sent to any server. The tool saves your most recent input in localStorage so it reappears on refresh — this stays on your device only.
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