🔤 Unicode Normalizer (NFC/NFD/NFKC/NFKD)

Professional Unicode normalization tool supporting all standard forms (NFC, NFD, NFKC, NFKD). Features character-level diff visualization, Unicode code point analysis, and byte-level comparison to debug text processing and search issues in international applications.

Text Input:

Enter Unicode text to normalize. Try accented characters like café, naïve, or résumé

Normalization Form:

Select the Unicode normalization form to apply

Show character differences:

Highlight character-level differences between original and normalized text

Show character differences

Show detailed Unicode analysis:

Include Unicode code points, byte representations, and character count analysis

Show detailed Unicode analysis

Unicode Normalization Results:

🔤 UNICODE NORMALIZED

Text Normalized to NFC Form

Character differences highlighted for debugging

📝 Input Analysis

                Original: café (c + a + f + é)
            

✓ 4 characters detected

✅

NFC (Composed)

café

4 characters

🔗

NFD (Decomposed)

cafe´

5 characters

🔍 Character-Level Analysis

                    Original: c(U+0063) a(U+0061) f(U+0066) é(U+00E9)
                
                    NFC: c(U+0063) a(U+0061) f(U+0066) é(U+00E9)
                
                    NFD: c(U+0063) a(U+0061) f(U+0066) e(U+0065) ´(U+0301)

💡 Analysis:

The accented character 'é' is composed in NFC form but decomposed into 'e' + combining accent in NFD form.

🔢 UTF-8 Byte Analysis

/* UTF-8 Byte Representation */
NFC: [0x63, 0x61, 0x66, 0xC3, 0xA9] (5 bytes)
NFD: [0x63, 0x61, 0x66, 0x65, 0xCC, 0x81] (6 bytes)
Difference: +1 byte in NFD form

🔧

JavaScript Required:

This Unicode normalizer requires JavaScript to perform text normalization and character analysis.

How to Use This Unicode Normalizer (NFC/NFD/NFKC/NFKD)

How to Use the Unicode Normalizer

Enter Text: Paste or type Unicode text containing accented characters, ligatures, or special symbols
Choose Form: Select the normalization form (NFC is most common for general use)
Enable Analysis: Check options to show character differences and detailed Unicode analysis
Normalize: Click to process and see normalized results with visual differences highlighted

Pro Tips:

Use NFC for web applications and general text processing
Use NFD when you need to separate accents for advanced text analysis
Enable "Show differences" to debug why two similar-looking texts aren't matching
Try "All Forms" to compare how each normalization affects your text

How It Works

How Unicode Normalization Works

Unicode normalization standardizes text representation to ensure consistent processing:

NFC (Canonical Composed): Combines base characters with combining marks into single precomposed characters. Most compact form.

NFD (Canonical Decomposed): Separates precomposed characters into base character plus combining marks. Useful for text processing.

NFKC (Compatibility Composed): Like NFC but also applies compatibility mappings (converts ligatures, etc.).

NFKD (Compatibility Decomposed): Like NFD but with compatibility mappings applied.

The tool uses JavaScript's native String.prototype.normalize() method and provides detailed analysis of character-level changes, Unicode code points, and UTF-8 byte representations.

When You Might Need This

• Debug Unicode search issues where café doesn't match cafe in databases
• Normalize user input for consistent text processing and storage
• Fix character encoding problems in multilingual applications
• Standardize accented characters for URL slugs and file names
• Resolve text comparison failures in internationalized software
• Convert ligatures and special characters for better compatibility
• Prepare Unicode text for search indexing and matching algorithms
• Debug font rendering issues with composed vs decomposed characters
• Normalize user-generated content for consistent display and processing
• Fix text equality issues in forms handling international names and addresses

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between NFC and NFD normalization?

NFC (Canonical Composed) combines characters with their accents into single code points (é = U+00E9), while NFD (Canonical Decomposed) separates them into base character plus combining marks (é = e + ´). NFC is more compact and commonly used, while NFD is useful for text processing and searching.

When should I use NFKC vs NFKD normalization forms?

NFKC and NFKD are compatibility forms that also convert similar-looking characters (like ligatures ﬁ → fi). Use NFKC when you want composed characters with compatibility mapping, and NFKD for decomposed characters with compatibility. These forms are useful for search and comparison but may lose typographic distinctions.

Why do some characters look the same but fail equality tests?

Characters can be encoded differently in Unicode - 'é' might be a single composed character (U+00E9) or separate base letter 'e' (U+0065) plus combining accent (U+0301). They look identical but have different byte representations. Unicode normalization fixes these comparison issues.

How does Unicode normalization affect text length and file size?

Normalization can change character count and byte size. NFD typically increases length by decomposing accented characters, while NFC is more compact. NFKC/NFKD may reduce length by converting ligatures. The tool shows exact character counts and UTF-8 byte sizes for each form.

Should I normalize text before storing it in databases?

Yes, normalizing to NFC before storage is recommended for consistency. This prevents duplicate entries where 'café' and 'cafe´' are treated as different strings. Most modern databases and search engines expect NFC-normalized text for proper indexing and comparison.