Overview
Introduction
Text pasted from a quoted list, like a code array or CSV-style value list, often has quote characters clinging to every word that need to be stripped before further processing.
This tool removes them in one pass, and runs entirely client-side, so nothing you paste is ever uploaded to a server.
What Is Word Unquoter?
A per-word unquoting tool that strips a chosen quote character from both sides of every word that has it wrapped around it.
It's part of this site's String Tools collection and works entirely in your browser.
How Word Unquoter Works
The tool splits the input on whitespace while preserving the original whitespace between words, then checks each non-whitespace word for the chosen quote character at both its start and end.
If a word is wrapped in matching quotes, both are stripped; otherwise the word is left exactly as it was.
When To Use Word Unquoter
Use it after pasting a quoted list of words, like values copied from a code array, to get back plain unquoted words.
It's the natural companion to Word Quoter when you need to reverse that transformation.
Often used alongside Word Quoter and String Unquoter.
Features
Advantages
- Only strips quotes from words that actually have them, leaving unquoted words untouched.
- Works with any custom quote character, not just double quotes.
- Requires the quote at both ends plus a minimum length before stripping, so a stray quote at one end is preserved rather than producing a lopsided word.
Limitations
- Doesn't unescape internal escaped quote characters inside a word.
- A word shorter than two quote characters is never treated as quoted, to avoid ambiguous partial matches.
Examples
Best Practices & Notes
Best Practices
- Use the exact same quote character that was used to quote the words originally.
- Check mixed input carefully; only words with quotes on both sides are affected, so partially-quoted text stays partially quoted.
- Strip trailing commas with the Word Suffix Remover first, since a word ending in a comma no longer ends with the quote character.
Developer Notes
A word is only unquoted when `part.length >= quote.length * 2 && part.startsWith(quote) && part.endsWith(quote)`, which prevents a word made entirely of quote characters from being stripped down past its original content.
Word Unquoter Use Cases
- Cleaning up a quoted list of values copied from code
- Reversing output produced by Word Quoter
- Normalizing mixed quoted and unquoted word lists
Common Mistakes
- Using a different quote character than the one the words were originally wrapped in, which leaves them untouched.
- Expecting escaped internal quotes to be unescaped; only the outer wrapping quotes are removed.
Tips
- Pair with Word Quoter to confirm the operation round-trips correctly for your text and chosen quote character.
- Nothing is unescaped as the quotes come off, so an escaped quote inside a word survives as a literal backslash sequence.