Slugify String Online
This example demonstrates the slugify operation from String Tools, pre-loaded with “Hello World! This is a Test String”. Paste any text and convert it to a URL-safe slug instantly.
How It Works
The slugify operation transforms free-form text into a clean, URL-safe identifier. It normalizes Unicode characters, removes diacritics (accents), converts to lowercase, and replaces spaces and special characters with hyphens. Multiple consecutive hyphens collapse into one, and leading/trailing hyphens are stripped.
For example, “Hello World! This is a Test String” becomes “hello-world-this-is-a-test-string”.
Unicode Handling
The tool properly handles Unicode normalization (NFD form), so “cafe” with an accent becomes “cafe” and “uber” with an umlaut becomes “uber”. Accented characters are stripped to their ASCII equivalents using Unicode decomposition.
When to Use Slugify
Slugify is essential for generating blog post URLs, file names, database identifiers, and any context where you need a clean, human-readable string from free-form text. Most web frameworks have a built-in slugify, but this tool lets you preview the result before writing code.
How to Use
- Paste any text into the input area
- The slugified output appears instantly
- Copy the result using the copy button
Common Questions
Does slugify handle non-ASCII characters?
Yes. Unicode characters are normalized and diacritics are removed. Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic characters are handled according to Unicode transliteration rules where possible, though results may vary for non-Latin scripts.
Can I customize the separator?
The current implementation uses hyphens as separators. To use underscores or dots, paste the hyphenated slug and use find-and-replace with the String Tools tool.
How is this different from URL encoding?
URL encoding (percent-encoding) preserves special characters as %XX sequences. Slugify removes or replaces special characters entirely, producing a clean, human-readable string. Use slugify for display URLs, URL encoding for transmitting special characters in query parameters.