Remove Extra Spaces
Collapse multiple spaces and trim whitespace.
What the Remove Extra Spaces Tool Does
The Remove Extra Spaces tool is an essential formatting utility that automatically cleans up sloppy text. It scans your document to find instances where the spacebar was hit two or more times, and collapses those large gaps down into a single, standard space.
Additionally, it acts as a text trimmer, meaning it will also delete any invisible trailing spaces at the end of lines, or leading spaces at the beginning of paragraphs.
When to Clean Up Spacing
Random gaps and double spaces are a frustrating byproduct of moving text between different software formats:
- Copying from PDFs: This is the most common culprit. Because PDF files use absolute positioning to place text on a page, copying a paragraph out of a PDF will almost always result in bizarre, massive spaces between words.
- The "Double Space" Habit: Many people were taught on typewriters to put two spaces after a period. In modern digital typography, this is considered a formatting error. This tool modernizes the text.
- Database and Excel Cleanup: Invisible trailing spaces at the end of a spreadsheet cell can break database queries or formulas. Running data through this tool ensures absolute cleanliness.
Examples of Spacing Cleanup
Watch how the tool normalizes broken sentences:
Before: The quick brown fox jumps.
After: The quick brown fox jumps.
Related Formatting Tools
If you are trying to clean up messy data, check out these related utilities:
- Remove Empty Lines - Delete vertical white space and massive paragraph gaps.
- Trim Lines - Specifically target and remove only the invisible spaces at the start and end of strings.
- Text Cleaner - Apply multiple formatting fixes at the exact same time.