Strikethrough Text Generator

Cross out words with a clean line through your text for corrections, humor and emphasis. Free, instant, no sign-up.

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There is a special kind of humor that only exists in crossed-out words: the thought you almost said, the price you almost charged, the mistake you are owning with style. A strikethrough text generator puts a clean horizontal line through every character you type, turning plain text into something that reads like an edited draft. It works in bios, captions, comments and chats where no formatting toolbar exists.

The trick is pure Unicode. The tool above adds a combining long stroke after each character, and your device draws the line through the letter automatically. Type or paste your text, watch the preview strike it through live, copy it with one tap and drop it anywhere. Free, instant, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

What Is Strikethrough Text?

Strikethrough text is normal text with a horizontal line running through the middle of each character. Traditionally it marks deleted or corrected writing, like an editor's red pen on a manuscript. Online, it has grown a second life as a tone device: writers cross out a word to show what they really think, add sarcasm, or soften a statement with self-aware humor.

Technically, this generator uses the Unicode combining character U+0336, the combining long stroke overlay. A combining character attaches itself to the letter before it instead of taking up its own space, so the line merges visually with the text. Because the result is still plain characters, it copies, pastes and forwards exactly like normal text on every platform.

Combining Marks vs. Formatting

Word processors draw strikethrough as a style layered over text, and the style vanishes the moment you paste into a plain-text box. The combining-stroke approach bakes the line into the character stream itself, so Instagram comments, Discord messages, tweets and game chats all display it. The trade-off is subtle: each visible letter now carries an invisible companion character, which can confuse strict character counters and some older search tools.

Where to Use Strikethrough Text

Crossed-out text shines in a few classic roles:

  • Playful corrections: show the thought you replaced, like a price cut from old to new or a joke with the punchline half-hidden.
  • To-do and checklist vibes: mark items as done in a bio or post when no checkbox formatting is available.
  • Sarcasm and tone: cross out the polite version to reveal what you actually mean, a favorite move in witty captions.
  • Sale announcements: strike the old price next to the new one for an instant discount look.
  • Edits and updates: show what changed in an announcement while keeping the original visible for transparency.

Use it sparingly. A line through a word or a short phrase reads clearly; a whole paragraph of struck text becomes visual noise and strains the eyes. Reserve it for moments where the crossing-out itself carries meaning.

How to Use Our Strikethrough Text Generator

Three quick steps:

  1. Step 1: Enter your text. Type or paste into the input box. Every character, including spaces and punctuation, gets the strike line.
  2. Step 2: Preview the result. The dashed preview area shows the crossed-out version live as you type, with a character counter tracking input length.
  3. Step 3: Copy and paste. Press the red copy button, wait for the green confirmation message, then paste into any comment, bio, caption or message thread.

Tips for Strikethrough That Lands Well

The comedy and clarity of strikethrough depend on restraint. Strike single words or short phrases rather than sentences, so the line stays crisp and readable. Pair struck text with its replacement right beside it: the old price next to the new price, the polite word next to the honest one. That contrast is the entire joke. Avoid stacking strikethrough with other exotic styles like upside-down or glitch text in the same line, since combined effects quickly become unreadable. And test on mobile first, because the stroke renders at slightly different weights across system fonts.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the strikethrough effect actually work?

The generator places the Unicode combining long stroke (U+0336) after every character. Your device renders that mark as a line through the preceding letter, so the effect is built from real characters rather than formatting.

Will it work on Instagram, Discord and WhatsApp?

Yes. Combining characters are standard Unicode, so the struck text displays anywhere plain text is accepted, on phones and computers alike.

Does strikethrough affect character counts?

It can. Each letter carries an extra combining character, so strict counters may count roughly double. Keep struck phrases short when limits matter.

Can I remove the strikethrough later?

Not with one click, since the marks are part of the text. Keep a copy of your original wording, or simply retype the phrase without the generator.

Is the generator free?

Completely free, with no sign-up and no limits. Everything runs locally in your browser, so your text stays private.

Is struck text readable by screen readers?

Usually the underlying letters are still announced, but the visual joke of the crossing-out is lost. Do not rely on strikethrough alone to convey important corrections.

More Free Text Tools

Keep styling with more Unicode generators from Invisible Texts:

Bold Text Generator Small Text Generator Cursive Text Generator Upside Down Text Generator

Conclusion

Strikethrough text turns a simple correction into a punchline and a price cut into a visual event, all with characters that work anywhere text does. The free generator above applies the effect instantly, with a live preview and one-tap copy. Aim it at short phrases, pair the old with the new, and let the line through the words do the talking.

Frequently Asked Questions

It inserts the combining character U+0336 (Combining Long Stroke Overlay) immediately after every letter you type. A combining character has no width of its own; instead it draws a horizontal line through the preceding character. The result is still ordinary text, so you can copy and paste it anywhere, and deleting the invisible U+0336 characters restores the original.
U+0336 is the Unicode character named Combining Long Stroke Overlay. It belongs to the Combining Diacritical Marks block (U+0300 to U+036F). Unlike normal letters, it occupies no space and attaches to the character before it, drawing a long horizontal bar through its middle. One U+0336 per letter produces the classic strikethrough look used by these generators.
A combining character is a code point that modifies the character before it instead of standing alone. Accents work the same way: e plus U+0301 becomes e with an acute accent. Combining marks have zero advance width, so they visually merge with their base letter. Strikethrough generators exploit this mechanism with U+0336, which is why the effect is real text and not an image or font style.
Each font decides where to anchor combining marks, and some fonts position U+0336 too high, too low, or off-center. Monospace and older fonts are the worst offenders, while modern system fonts on iOS and Android usually center it well. If the line floats oddly, the problem is the viewer's font, not your text, and there is nothing the sender can change except using a platform with native strikethrough formatting.
Yes, natively. Wrap any word in single tildes, like ~mistake~, and WhatsApp renders it struck through on send. The Unicode U+0336 method also works in WhatsApp chats. Native formatting is cleaner because it does not double your character count, but the Unicode version survives when text is copied out of WhatsApp into apps that lack the tilde formatting.
Type a tilde ~ before and after the text, for example ~wrong answer~. When you send the message, WhatsApp converts it to struck-through text. This works on Android, iPhone, and WhatsApp Web. For longer passages you can also select text on mobile and choose Strikethrough from the formatting popup that appears above the selection.
Yes, Discord has native strikethrough: wrap text in double tildes, like ~~spoiler~~, and it renders with a line through it on desktop and mobile. The Unicode combining-character method also displays correctly in Discord messages. Use the native tildes when chatting in Discord, since they keep the message short; use the generator version when you need the effect to persist after copying text elsewhere.
Yes. On mobile, select the text and pick Strikethrough from the formatting menu; on desktop, use the Ctrl+Shift+X shortcut or wrap text in double tildes like ~~this~~. Telegram also renders Unicode U+0336 strikethrough pasted from a generator. Native formatting is preferable inside Telegram because it keeps messages clean and searchable, while the Unicode version is better for text you will reuse outside the app.
Instagram has no native strikethrough button, but the Unicode method works: generate the text and paste it into bios, captions, or comments. It renders on the Instagram app and website. Keep in mind the 150-character bio limit still applies, and each letter plus its U+0336 counts as two code points, so long struck-through bios can hit limits faster than they appear to.
Yes, via the Unicode method. Paste styled text into a tweet and it renders on the web and mobile apps, since X does not offer native strikethrough. Watch the character budget: X counts code points, and every struck letter uses two, so a 140-visible-character struck tweet consumes about 280 units of the 280-character limit. Keep struck passages short.
Yes. Facebook renders U+0336 combining marks in posts, comments, and messages on both desktop and mobile. Facebook offers no native strikethrough option, so the generator method is the standard workaround. The underlying text remains searchable and readable by screen readers, which is an advantage over posting a screenshot of struck text.
Delete every U+0336 character. The fastest way is a find-and-replace: paste the text into an editor, find the invisible combining mark, and replace it with nothing. Programmatically, a regular expression matching the code point U+0336 strips them all at once. Because the base letters are untouched underneath, removal is perfect and instant, restoring your original plain text exactly.
Yes, though it is fiddly. In most editors you can select the text, and the invisible U+0336 characters are included in the selection even though you cannot see them. Retyping the passage is the simplest manual method. For a cleaner approach, paste the text into a Unicode cleaner tool, which strips all combining marks in one click.
Each visible letter is actually two code points: the base character plus U+0336. Platforms that count code points, like X, therefore consume the limit twice as fast. A 100-letter struck sentence counts as roughly 200 units. SMS is affected too, since the extra code points can push a message into additional segments. For long passages, prefer a platform's native strikethrough formatting, which adds no extra characters.
It can, especially in emails. Heavy use of combining marks resembles zalgo-style abuse that filters are trained to catch, and some corporate gateways strip or quarantine messages full of U+0336. A few struck words in a casual email are harmless, but never write a whole marketing email or subject line this way. When deliverability matters, use the email client's native strikethrough button instead.
Yes, and this is a genuine advantage. Screen readers ignore the U+0336 combining mark and announce the underlying letters normally, so visually impaired users hear the plain sentence. This makes Unicode strikethrough far more accessible than decorative Unicode alphabets, which screen readers spell out letter by letter. The visual strikethrough cue is lost, but no information is.
It renders in most modern clients, including Gmail and Apple Mail, but it is risky for deliverability. Spam filters associate combining characters with abuse, and some clients display the line inconsistently. If you must, limit it to one or two words and test by sending to yourself first. For professional email, use your client's built-in strikethrough formatting on the body text instead.
On modern smartphones, yes, the combining mark usually renders correctly. Older or basic phones may show the base letters with a misplaced line or ignore the mark entirely. Like other Unicode effects, it increases code point count, which can split messages into extra billed segments. Test with the recipient's phone type in mind before sending anything important.
Strikethrough uses exactly one combining mark per letter (U+0336), producing a single clean horizontal line. Zalgo text stacks dozens of combining marks above and below each letter, creating the chaotic glitchy look. Because strikethrough adds only one mark per character, it renders reliably almost everywhere, while zalgo frequently breaks layouts, overflows line boxes, and gets flagged by spam filters.
Yes. The generator normally strikes every character, but you can manually add U+0336 after just the letters you want affected. Most generators strike the whole input, so partial effects need manual editing or a tool with a selection option.
You can stack U+0336 (long stroke) with U+0337 (short stroke overlay) on the same letter, which some fonts render as a thicker or doubled line. Results are inconsistent: many fonts draw both strokes in nearly the same place, so it just looks like a bolder single line. There is no official double-strikethrough character, so treat this as an experiment rather than a reliable style.
U+0337 is Combining Short Stroke Overlay, the shorter cousin of U+0336. It draws a horizontal bar that spans less of the character's width. Used alone it creates a subtler strike effect, and combined with U+0336 it can thicken the line on fonts that position them slightly apart. Like all combining marks, it attaches to the preceding character and copies along with the text.
Yes. U+0336 attaches to any base character, including digits, spaces, and punctuation. This works because combining marks are not limited to letters. Struck numbers are handy for showing price drops, and struck punctuation keeps the rhythm of a sentence. Rendering is generally as reliable as with letters on modern fonts.
Unreliably. Emoji are wide, colorful glyphs, and most fonts do not define a good anchor point for U+0336 on them, so the line often lands beside or through only part of the emoji. Some platforms strip the combining mark from emoji entirely. If you need a struck emoji effect, you are better off editing an image than relying on Unicode.
The font on the viewer's device is misplacing the combining mark's anchor. U+0336 is supposed to center vertically on the base glyph, but fonts with poor mark positioning shift it. This is common in monospace terminals and old desktop fonts. Modern mobile system fonts handle it well, so the same text can look perfect on a phone and broken on a desktop with an outdated font.
Yes. Paste U+0336-generated text into a comment and YouTube renders the line through each letter on the website and in the app. YouTube has no native strikethrough for comments, so this is the only way. It is popular for corrections and jokes, like posting a wrong guess with a line through it before giving the right answer.
Google Docs has native strikethrough in the Format menu, which is the better choice inside documents because it is semantic and searchable. Pasted Unicode strikethrough also displays fine and survives export to PDF. Use the native option for documents you will edit later, since removing hundreds of U+0336 characters by hand is tedious.
Word has built-in strikethrough on the Home ribbon, which you should prefer for real documents. Unicode U+0336 text pasted into Word displays correctly and prints fine. The native formatting is superior because spellcheck, find-and-replace, and accessibility tools understand it, while the Unicode version is just characters with invisible attachments.
Yes, TikTok renders the combining marks in captions, comments, and bios. Creators use it for before-and-after jokes and correction humor. Keep struck segments short: captions have limited space, and each struck letter consumes two code points. TikTok's search will still match the underlying plain words since the platform largely ignores combining marks when indexing.
No. URLs must be valid ASCII, and inserting U+0336 breaks the address or gets percent-encoded into an unusable mess. Even displaying a struck link is a bad idea because clicking behavior becomes unpredictable. If you want to show a discounted link, write the plain URL and put the struck text next to it, never inside the link itself.
Yes. U+0336 is an ordinary Unicode character, so it travels with the text through the clipboard into any app. The recipient sees the same struck effect as long as their font renders combining marks. This portability is the main advantage over native formatting like WhatsApp's tildes, which disappear the moment text leaves the app.
Yes, LinkedIn renders U+0336 in posts, comments, and articles, since it has no native strikethrough option. It is occasionally used for showing revised figures, like an old price with a line through it. Use it sparingly in a professional context, and never in your headline, where applicant tracking systems and search may mishandle the extra code points.
Yes, effectively. Google normalizes away combining marks like U+0336 during indexing, so it reads and ranks the underlying plain words. A struck word still contributes its normal meaning to the page. This is different from decorative Unicode alphabets, which Google treats as entirely separate characters. For SEO purposes, strikethrough is harmless.
No. The s and del tags are semantic markup: they tell browsers and assistive technology that text is no longer accurate, and screen readers may announce it as deleted. Unicode strikethrough is purely visual characters with no semantic meaning. For web pages you control, always prefer the HTML tags; use the Unicode version only where you cannot write HTML, like social bios.
Yes, by pasting U+0336-generated text directly into a CMS field, comment box, or bio. It will render wherever the page's font supports combining marks. But if you can edit the HTML, use the s or del tags instead: they are accessible, searchable, and easy to remove later, while the Unicode version litters your content with invisible characters that complicate future edits.
Reddit supports native strikethrough in markdown: wrap text in double tildes like ~~this~~. The Unicode U+0336 method also renders in posts and comments. Prefer the native markdown on Reddit because it is cleaner, and some subreddit AutoModerator rules remove comments overloaded with combining characters, mistaking them for zalgo spam.
iOS has no built-in strikethrough keyboard option. Use a generator in Safari, copy the result, and paste it into your app. Some apps like Pages and Notes offer strikethrough in their own formatting menus, but for Instagram, iMessage, or bios, the Unicode generator method is the practical route. The effect renders correctly in most iOS apps.
Gboard has no strikethrough key, so the usual method is a generator website: type, copy, and paste into WhatsApp, Instagram, or wherever needed. A few apps, like Google Docs and Telegram, include strikethrough in their own formatting toolbars. Once pasted, the U+0336 characters behave like normal text for editing and deleting.
Yes. Generate the text in your browser, copy it, and paste it into Snapchat's caption field. It renders on both iOS and Android. Snapchat has no native strikethrough, so Unicode is the only option. Keep captions short, since the doubled code points eat into the caption space faster than plain text.
Yes, Pinterest renders combining marks in pin titles, descriptions, and board names. It is sometimes used for sale pins showing an old price struck through next to the new one. As with other platforms, the underlying words remain searchable because Pinterest's indexing ignores the U+0336 marks.
Combining mark positioning is defined per glyph by the font designer, and a few glyphs have imperfect anchors. Narrow letters like i or l sometimes get a line that looks shifted relative to wider letters. High-quality system fonts minimize this, but it is never pixel-perfect across every character. The variation is a font limitation, not an error in your text.
Not reliably with Unicode alone. A single U+0336 draws whatever weight the font assigns. Stacking U+0336 with U+0337 sometimes thickens the appearance, but many fonts overlay them identically. If you need a heavy strike line for design work, use real formatting (CSS text-decoration or Word's strikethrough) where you control the exact rendering.
Yes, that is exactly what generators do: they append U+0336 after every character, including spaces and line breaks, in one operation. Doing it by hand for a paragraph would take forever, so paste the whole block into the tool. Just remember the doubled code point count if you are pasting into a length-limited field afterward.
No. Text-to-speech engines ignore U+0336 and read the base characters normally, so a struck sentence sounds identical to the plain version. This is actually useful: unlike decorative Unicode fonts that confuse TTS into spelling gibberish, strikethrough degrades gracefully for listeners. The visual joke is lost, but comprehension is preserved.
It is risky. Windows, macOS, and Linux all technically allow U+0336 in file names, but backup tools, cloud sync, and older software can mangle or strip combining characters, leaving you with confusing duplicates. For anything you need to find later, keep file names in plain ASCII and save the stylized text for display contexts.
Slack has native strikethrough: wrap text in single tildes like ~done~. The Unicode U+0336 version also renders in Slack messages. Use the native tildes for everyday team chat since they are cleaner and searchable; reserve the generator for text you plan to copy out of Slack into tools without formatting support.
Gmail includes a native strikethrough button in the compose toolbar's formatting options, which is the best choice for emails. Pasted Unicode strikethrough also displays correctly to recipients. Prefer the native button because it keeps the message accessible and avoids the spam-filter suspicion that heavy combining characters can attract.
Running already-struck text through the generator again adds a second U+0336 after each character. Visually nothing changes on most fonts, since the two strokes overlap. The hidden cost is real, though: the text now carries three code points per letter, tripling the character count for limit purposes. Always start from plain text when generating.
Yes. U+0335 draws a short stroke overlay, U+0337 a similar short variant, and U+0338 a long slash overlay as in the not-equals sign. There are also enclosing marks like U+20D2 for boxes around characters. Each attaches to the preceding character the same way. Generators for underline text use U+0332, which works on the identical principle but draws below the baseline.
No. Hashtag parsers on Instagram, X, and TikTok treat U+0336 as a word boundary or an invalid character, so the tag breaks at the first struck letter or fails to link entirely. A struck hashtag will not aggregate posts. Write hashtags in plain ASCII and keep strikethrough styling in the regular caption text around them.