Convert special characters.
Clean your text.
Transform German umlauts, Nordic letters, and French accents into plain ASCII. Strip diacritics, create SEO-friendly URL slugs, and normalize text instantly — all in your browser.
Convert special characters in 3 easy steps.
Paste or Type Your Text
Enter any text containing special characters — German umlauts (ä, ö, ü, ß), Nordic letters (å, ø, æ), French accents (é, è, ê, ç), or any accented characters from Latin-based languages.
Choose Your Conversion Mode
Select from four specialized modes: German Umlauts (ä→ae, ö→oe, ü→ue, ß→ss), Nordic Letters (å→aa, ø→oe, æ→ae), Diacritic Stripper (removes all accent marks), or SEO URL Slugify (creates clean, URL-friendly text).
Convert & Use
Click the Convert button to transform your text instantly. Copy the result to your clipboard or download it as a .TXT file. Use it for file names, URLs, database entries, or anywhere plain ASCII text is required.
The Complete Special Character Converter
A special character converter is an essential tool for anyone working with international text. Different languages use accented characters and special letters that, while beautiful in their native scripts, can cause problems in file names, URLs, databases, and legacy systems that only support plain ASCII. This tool bridges that gap by intelligently converting special characters to their closest ASCII equivalents.
Our converter offers four powerful modes. German Umlauts handles the classic German transliteration rules: ä becomes ae, ö becomes oe, ü becomes ue, and ß becomes ss. This is the standard method used in Germany when umlauts aren't available. Nordic Letters handles Scandinavian characters like å (aa), ø (oe), and æ (ae). Diacritic Stripper removes all accent marks from Latin characters — é becomes e, ñ becomes n, ç becomes c, and hundreds more. Finally, SEO URL Slugify combines all conversions and adds URL-safe formatting: spaces become hyphens, special characters are removed, and everything is lowercased.
Like all WebNotePad tools, this converter runs entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your device — no server uploads, no tracking, no privacy concerns. It's perfect for web developers creating clean URLs, data scientists normalizing datasets, content managers preparing SEO-friendly slugs, or anyone who needs to convert text for systems that don't support Unicode.
Character Conversion Lookup Table
| Original | German Umlauts | Nordic Letters | Diacritic Stripper | SEO Slugify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ä | ae | a | a | a |
| ö | oe | o | o | o |
| ü | ue | u | u | u |
| ß | ss | ss | ss | ss |
| å | a | aa | a | a |
| ø | o | oe | o | o |
| æ | ae | ae | ae | ae |
| é | e | e | e | e |
| è | e | e | e | e |
| ê | e | e | e | e |
| ç | c | c | c | c |
| ñ | n | n | n | n |
Frequently Asked Questions.
A special character converter is a tool that transforms accented and special characters (like German umlauts, Nordic letters, and French accents) into their plain ASCII equivalents or SEO-friendly alternatives. It's essential for URL slugs, file names, and systems that don't support Unicode.
Select the 'German Umlauts' mode and type or paste your text. The tool automatically converts ä → ae, ö → oe, ü → ue, and ß → ss. This is the standard German transliteration used when umlauts aren't available — for example, "München" becomes "Muenchen" and "Straße" becomes "Strasse".
Diacritic Stripper removes all accent marks from Latin characters, converting é→e, è→e, ê→e, ñ→n, ç→c, and hundreds of other accented characters to their base ASCII letters. It's perfect for cleaning text for search engines, databases, or legacy systems that only support basic ASCII.
Slugify transforms any text into a clean, URL-friendly string. It converts accented characters to ASCII, replaces spaces with hyphens, removes special characters and punctuation, and lowercases everything. For example, "Café Münster" becomes "cafe-munster" — perfect for blog post URLs and SEO-friendly links.
German Umlauts mode focuses on German-specific characters: ä→ae, ö→oe, ü→ue, ß→ss. Nordic Letters mode handles Scandinavian characters: å→aa, ø→oe, æ→ae, plus it also handles ü→u and ß→ss. The Nordic mode uses the traditional Scandinavian transliteration rules, while German mode follows German conventions.
Yes, completely. All conversions happen entirely within your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never uploaded to any server, stored remotely, or accessible to anyone but you. You can use this tool with complete confidence for sensitive data.
Yes! The tool is fully responsive and works seamlessly on smartphones and tablets. The interface adapts to smaller screens so you can convert text on the go from any iOS or Android device.
The Diacritic Stripper mode handles all common Latin-based accented characters, including those from French (é, è, ê, ë, à, â, ç), Spanish (á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü), Portuguese (ã, õ, ç), Italian (à, è, é, ì, ò, ù), and many more. It also handles ligatures like æ and œ.
Absolutely! You can switch between modes and convert the same text as many times as you like. Each conversion is independent. Use the Swap button to move converted text back to the input area, or click Clear to start fresh.