How to Reveal Non-Printable Characters and Unicode Code Points Fast

Copied text, and now you’re wondering what invisible characters might be tagging along? Hidden whitespaces, sneaky newlines or maybe even zero-width characters can all be hidden in copied text. Curious about how emoji composed of multiple characters are constructed? Find out here how to view non-printing characters and Unicode code points for any text ⤓.

First, a Mayan Step Count

If you count each small, steep step up one side of Chichen Itza’s Kukulcan pyramid, you shall arrive at the number 91 — and almost at the top. There’s one more step on one side to the very top, after all, so the total number of pyramidal steps is 4 × 91 + 1 or 365.

As is the wont for Mayan culture (or its common reception), underneath the facade of the building also known as the Castillo are meaningful numbers — one step per day in the Mayan calendar’s year in this case.

Now, want to peek underneath the facade of the building known as Unicode? There are numbers to be found, as is a computer’s wont, and meaning perchance:

How to Reveal Non-Printable Characters and Unicode Code Points Fast

Text Input

Text Including Non-Printable Characters

Hover to see Unicode code points.

Text as Unicode Code Points

Hover to see characters as rendered.

Uncovered lurking char(m)s?

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Non-Printable Character Representation

Found zero-width space? Get rid of it with one click:
Zero-Width Space Detector: Zaps Hidden Chars from Text

View Unicode Characters with Mac Character Viewer

To find the Unicode code point for a character on a Mac:

1. Open Character Viewer on the Mac.
   Here’s how: Select Edit | Emoji & Symbols from the menu.
   Emoji panel: If the emoji panel opens, click the button in its top right corner to expand it.
2. Type or paste the character or characters in the Search field.
3. Click on the desired character in the search results with the right moue button.
4. Select Copy Character Info from the context menu that has appeared.
   
5. Paste the code point information, for example in a blank note in Notes.
   Here’s what you get: Find the UTF-16 codes under Unicode: and the UTF-8 codes under, well, UTF-8:.
   

Is there a plain-text version of an emoji? How to Get the Text Version of Emojis (and Vice Versa)

View Code Points Using Gnome Characters on Linux

To reveal the Unicode code point for a character on Linux Gnome:

1. Open Characters.
2. Click Search.
   Keyboard shortcut: You can also press Ctrl F.
3. Type or paste the character whose code point you want to reveal.
   Just one: Characters will find individual characters or emoji.
4. Click the character in search results.
5. Find the UTF-16 code under Unicode:
   Combining characters: For combining chars, click See also, then click the characters in succession to see their code points.
   

How to Reveal Non-Printable Characters and Unicode Code Points Fast: FAQ

How can I find out more about a Unicode character?

To see details about a character or code point, search for its UTF-16 representation as revealed above using a Unicode character search engine.

Something else you can do with Unicode: How to Align Numbers Perfectly in Any Text: Unicode Monospace

Can I identify code points with Windows Character Map?

No, not easily.

While Character Map lets you find characters by name (to copy and insert them, for instance), locating information for a specific character is not a task accomplished easily with it.
UTF-16: For a character highlighted in character map, you can find the UTF-16 code point in the lower left corner.

(First published June 2024, last updated April 2026)