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Unicode Character Inspector

See the code point, category, and UTF-8 and UTF-16 bytes of every character.

Each character is inspected live as you type. Nothing leaves your browser.

Characters
Type or paste above to see code points, names, and bytes for each character.

How to inspect Unicode characters in text

  1. Paste the text

    Type or paste anything, from a single mystery character to a whole paragraph. Analysis happens live with no button.

  2. Read each character row

    Every code point gets a row showing its U+ hex value, decimal value, name or category, UTF-8 bytes, UTF-16 units, and HTML entity.

  3. Check the totals

    A summary bar counts code points, UTF-16 units, and UTF-8 bytes for the entire input, which is how one string ends up with three different lengths.

  4. Copy the breakdown

    Click Copy breakdown to get the whole table as tab-separated text that pastes cleanly into a spreadsheet.

Why use this tool

Splits by code point, not by char

Emoji and other characters above U+FFFF appear as one entry with the correct code point, while the UTF-16 column reveals the surrogate pair underneath.

Three encodings side by side

Each row lines up the code point, its UTF-8 byte sequence, and its UTF-16 code units, which makes length mismatches between systems easy to explain.

Invisible characters get labels

Control characters, zero-width characters, and unusual spaces are rendered as their code point with their exact Unicode name, instead of an indistinguishable blank.

Script detection for letters

Letters are tagged with their script, covering Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Han, Hiragana, Katakana, Hangul, Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari, and Thai, which exposes lookalike substitutions.

Spreadsheet-ready export

The Copy breakdown button produces a tab-separated table with a header row for pasting straight into Excel or Google Sheets.

Full totals on any length

The detailed list covers the first 500 characters to stay fast, while the code point, UTF-16, and UTF-8 totals always cover everything you pasted.

About this tool

This inspector takes apart any string one code point at a time. Each character is shown with its U+ notation, decimal value, HTML numeric entity, UTF-8 bytes in hex, and UTF-16 code units, alongside a name for invisible code points or a general category and script for visible ones. Iteration is by code point rather than JavaScript char, so an emoji reads as one character with its surrogate pair listed, not as two broken halves.

Reach for it when text misbehaves: a string length that disagrees between JavaScript and a database column, a Cyrillic а impersonating a Latin a in a domain or an identifier, a paste from an LLM or a PDF that looks right but fails a comparison, or an emoji that renders differently across platforms because of the joiners and variation selectors inside it. The byte columns also settle arguments about how much space text really occupies in UTF-8.

Everything is computed in the page, so pasting production log lines here is safe. The inspector diagnoses; its neighbours act. Strip what it finds with the invisible character remover, or convert characters into source-code form with the Unicode escape tool. For converting the hex and decimal values themselves, there is a number base converter.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Unicode inspector show?
For each character it shows the code point (like U+0041), the decimal value, a category or name, the HTML numeric entity, the UTF-8 bytes in hexadecimal, and the UTF-16 code units in hexadecimal. A summary at the top counts the total code points, UTF-16 units, and UTF-8 bytes for the whole text.
Does it handle emoji and characters outside the basic plane?
Yes. The text is split by code point, not by JavaScript char, so emoji and other characters above U+FFFF are shown as a single entry with the correct code point. The UTF-16 column shows the surrogate pair those characters use internally.
How are character names determined?
Control characters, whitespace, and other invisible code points are shown with their exact Unicode name, since that is where a name matters most. Visible letters, digits, symbols, and punctuation are labelled with their Unicode general category and, where relevant, their script (for example "Uppercase letter, Latin"). This works fully offline without bundling the entire Unicode name database.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The inspector runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is processed on your device and never sent to a server, stored, or logged.
Is there a limit on how much text I can inspect?
The per-character breakdown shows the first 500 characters to keep the page fast, and a note tells you when the input is longer. The summary counts at the top always cover the entire text, no matter how long.

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