Strikethrough Text Generator
Cross out your text with a clean line straight through it as you type. Choose a strikethrough, underline, or slash style, then copy the result into chats, posts, or docs — it stays struck anywhere plain Unicode goes, and nothing leaves your browser.
Line style
How to use Strikethrough Text Generator
- 1
Enter your text
Type or paste the text you want to cross out into the box.
- 2
Pick a line style
Choose strikethrough for a line through the middle, underline for a line below, or slash for a diagonal stroke.
- 3
Copy the result
The crossed-out text is built as you type. Use the copy button to put it on your clipboard.
- 4
Paste it anywhere
Drop it into a chat, social post, bio, or document — the line travels with the text because it is plain Unicode.
Strikethrough That Travels With Your Text
A line baked into the characters
Most strikethrough you have seen is a styling effect — a word processor or web page draws a line over the text using formatting, and the underlying letters stay plain. This tool does something different: it attaches a special combining mark to each character so the line becomes part of the text itself. Type "sold out" and you get s̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶, where the stroke is woven into every letter rather than painted on top.
That distinction is the whole point. Because the line is built from real characters, it survives copy and paste into places that offer no formatting buttons at all. The struck text stays struck wherever plain Unicode goes, instead of reverting to clean letters the moment it leaves a rich-text editor.
The combining marks that do the work
The effect relies on Unicode combining marks — characters that attach to the one before them instead of taking their own space. After each of your letters, the tool inserts a combining overlay that draws a line across that letter. Stack one of these after every character in a word and you get an unbroken line running through the entire string, made entirely of standard text.
These overlay marks were part of Unicode for legitimate notation needs, where a stroke through a letter can carry meaning. Repurposed here, they give you portable strikethrough: each mark is invisible on its own and simply renders as a line over its host character, so the result reads as crossed-out text everywhere it is displayed.
Three line styles to choose from
The tool offers three distinct looks, each from a different combining overlay. Strikethrough draws a horizontal line through the middle of every character, the classic crossed-out style: c̶a̶n̶c̶e̶l̶e̶d̶. Underline places a line beneath each character for a continuous underscore that, unlike a formatting underline, sticks through copy and paste. Slash adds a short diagonal stroke across each letter for a different, sharper crossed-out feel.
You can switch between them instantly to restyle the same text. Strikethrough suits edits and corrections, underline suits emphasis or link-like styling in plain-text fields, and the slash style gives a distinctive look when you want something less ordinary than a straight line through the middle.
Why CSS strikethrough does not paste
On a normal web page, strikethrough is applied with styling that lives in the page's markup, not in the text. When you select and copy such text, you copy the plain letters — the visual line is a property of the page and does not come along. Paste it into a chat or a bio and it arrives clean, with no strike at all. This catches people out constantly.
The combining-mark approach sidesteps that entirely. Since the line is encoded as characters interleaved with your letters, copying the text copies the marks too. There is no separate styling layer to lose, so the strikethrough is as portable as the words themselves — the key advantage over any formatting-based crossout.
Real uses for crossed-out text
Struck text is genuinely useful, not just decorative. Sellers cross out an old price next to a new one — w̶a̶s̶ ̶$̶5̶0̶ now $30 — to show a discount in a plain-text listing. Writers use it to show a visible edit or a tongue-in-cheek retraction, leaving the original words readable but clearly canceled. It is also handy for marking completed items in a plain-text to-do list.
On Discord and similar chats, the built-in way to strike text is to wrap it in double tildes, but that only works where the app's markdown is supported and it disappears when copied elsewhere. This tool's combining strikethrough works even where that markdown does not, and it travels intact when you move the text around.
Removing it and keeping it portable
Because the strike is made of invisible combining marks layered onto your letters, your underlying words are never altered. The base text "canceled" is still exactly those letters, each just carrying an extra overlay character. To get clean text back, retype it or paste your original — there is nothing destructive to undo, since the letters themselves were untouched.
This non-destructive design is also why switching styles is seamless and why the effect is reliable: you are adding marks, not transforming letters. The words remain intact and recoverable no matter which line style you apply.
Accessibility considerations
Combining strikethrough has trade-offs for assistive technology. Some screen readers handle the extra marks gracefully and read the word normally; others may stumble, insert pauses, or announce the combining characters, which can make the text awkward to listen to. Search and indexing can also be affected, since each letter now carries an attached mark that the plain word does not.
Use struck text where the crossed-out meaning is the point — prices, edits, canceled items — and keep in mind that a screen-reader user may not perceive the strike the way a sighted reader does. For anything essential, make sure the meaning is also clear from the words and surrounding context, not from the line alone.
Frequently asked questions
How does the strikethrough text generator work?
Will the crossed-out text work on Discord, Instagram, and WhatsApp?
What is the difference between the strikethrough, underline, and slash styles?
Can I remove the strikethrough later?
Is my text sent anywhere?
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