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Ghost Scrub

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Supported formats: .csv,.xlsx,.xls,.xlsm,.xlsb,.tsv

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AboutGhost Scrub

Removes zero-width spaces and non-breaking spaces that break code.Category: Cleaning & Preparation
Fixing lookup failures where two values look identical but a VLOOKUP or JOIN won't match themCleaning text copy-pasted from web pages or PDFs before importing into a databaseSanitizing form-submitted data before it's used as a matching key in another system
cleanhiddenbrokeninvisiblecharacterbomThe Ghost Scrub tool is compatible with:.Pair Ghost Scrub with Super Fix when a file has both encoding damage and invisible characters, or with Trim & Sanitize afterward to also clear empty rows and normal whitespace.
Ghost Scrub scans your file for characters that render as blank but aren't, zero-width spaces (U+200B), non-breaking spaces (U+00A0), and other invisible Unicode marks that often sneak in from copy-pasted web content or exports from certain CMS and PDF tools. These characters look identical to a normal space in a spreadsheet but break exact-match filters, VLOOKUPs, regex, and API calls downstream. The tool strips them out while leaving your visible text untouched.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What are "ghost" characters?

Invisible characters like zero-width spaces and non-breaking spaces that look like normal whitespace but break string comparisons, regex matches, and code that parses your CSV.

How would I know my file has this problem?

A classic symptom is a value that looks identical to another in a spreadsheet but fails an exact-match filter or lookup, that's usually a hidden character.


Essential for developers and data engineers debugging why an exact-match key comparison silently fails.