Fix Broken Words
Smartly rejoin words split by hyphens (from PDFs/books) and fix broken line breaks.
Clean Up Copied Text Instantly
Copying text from a PDF, magazine, or academic paper often leaves you with a mess of broken words (e.g., "sen- tence") and weird line breaks. Manually fixing this is tedious. Fix Broken Words automates this process by intelligently detecting valid hyphenation splits and rejoining them into whole words. If you just want to remove all newlines without fixing words, use the Line Break Remover instead.
Smart Detection
Distinguishes between line-break hyphens (to be removed) and grammatical hyphens (to be kept).
PDF Repair
Perfect for text extracted from column-layout PDFs where words are frequently split at the edge.
Paragraph Restoration
Use the "Join Lines" mode to merge broken lines back into full, readable paragraphs.
Before & After
Broken Input
wn fox jum-
ped over the
la- zy dog.
Fixed Output
How to Use
- Paste Text: Copy the broken text from your PDF or document and paste it into the left box.
- Choose Preset:
- Standard: Rejoins hyphenated words only.
- Aggressive: Joins hyphenated words AND weird mid-sentence line breaks.
- Join Lines: Flattens paragraphs into single lines.
- Review & Copy: Check the "Fixed Output" on the right (or switch to Compare mode) and copy the result.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does copied text have broken words?
This usually happens because the original document (like a PDF, newspaper, or book) used hyphenation to fit text into narrow columns. When you copy it, the hyphens and hard line breaks are copied literally, splitting words across lines.
How does this tool fix the text?
The tool uses smart regex patterns to find a hyphen at the end of a line followed immediately by the rest of the word on the next line. It removes the hyphen and the line break, joining the two parts back into a single valid word.
Will it remove necessary grammatical hyphens?
No. Our 'Standard' mode is designed to be safe. It only removes hyphens that are followed by a newline character. Hyphens that are part of compound words (like 'well-known' or 'half-baked') in the middle of a line are preserved.
What is the difference between 'Standard' and 'Aggressive' modes?
'Standard' mode focuses solely on rejoining hyphenated words. 'Aggressive' mode goes a step further by also attempting to fix 'loose' line breaks where a sentence seems to be interrupted by a newline even without a hyphen.
What does the 'Join Lines' preset do?
The 'Join Lines' preset removes single line breaks to create continuous paragraphs. This is perfect for fixing text from emails or older documents that 'hard wrap' text at 80 characters, restoring it to a natural flowing paragraph.
Is this tool suitable for fixing PDF text?
Yes, absolutely. Detecting and fixing split words from justified text columns in PDFs is the primary use case for this tool.
Is my text data secure?
Yes. All processing happens 100% in your web browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to our servers or stored anywhere.
Is there a limit to how much text I can process?
There is no hard limit set by the tool, but performance depends on your device. It can easily handle large chapters or articles with thousands of words instantly.
Does it work with non-English languages?
Yes. The tool looks for letter characters surrounding a hyphen, so it works well with most languages that use the Latin alphabet (like Spanish, French, German) and use hyphens for line breaks.
Can I use this tool on my phone?
Yes, the tool is fully responsive and works great on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops.
Is this tool free?
Yes, this version of Fix Broken Words is 100% free to use for unlimited text.