Skip to content
Free Humanizer Online
Powered by Humaniser

How to keep formatting when you humanize text

Humaniser works on plain text, so your paragraphs and line breaks make the trip, but bold, italics, links, headings, tables and bullet symbols do not. Strip stray symbols first, send the prose only, and reapply the formatting after you paste the result back.

Updated By Humaniser

On this page

What survives the handoff

When you tap Continue in Humaniser, the browser sends the contents of a plain-text box. Humaniser turns Windows line endings into ordinary new lines and strips invisible control characters, then loads the text into its own plain-text editor.

In your documentAfter the trip, and what to do
Paragraph breaksKept. Nothing, but check two paragraphs haven't merged.
Line breaks inside a paragraphKept. Join them first if they came from a PDF.
Bold, italics, underlineLost. Reapply after pasting back.
LinksWords kept, address lost. Reselect the words and add the link again.
HeadingsBecome ordinary lines. Leave them out of what you send.
Bullets and numberingDepends on the app you copied from. Send the list as a paragraph or line by line.
TablesCells become loose lines. Don't send tables; edit the text around them.
Invisible control charactersRemoved by Humaniser. Nothing to do. Tabs and new lines are kept.

Paste the plain version

Up to 200 words free

Opens in Humaniser. Free: 3 humanizations a day, up to 200 words each, no signup. How your text is handled

Humaniser's free plan gives you 3 humanizations a day of up to 200 English words each, with no account or card. On shared networks such as schools or offices, Humaniser may ask you to create a free account. Paid plans start at $5 a month billed yearly, or $10 billed monthly, and add more words per run and other languages.

Continue in Humaniser sends your text to humaniser.com, run by Humaniser LTD, and opens it in Humaniser's editor. Humaniser keeps that copy for at most 10 minutes, deletes it once the editor has loaded it, and never puts it in a web address. See Humaniser's privacy policy.

Before you paste: tidy the text

A minute of cleanup gives Humaniser sentences to work with instead of markup. Look for:

  • Markdown from AI chats: **bold**, ## Heading, - item and backticks. Delete the symbols and keep the words.
  • Headings: leave them out, or put them on their own line so they're easy to drop when you paste back.
  • Tables: pull them out entirely. Humanize the paragraph that explains the table, not the cells.
  • Footnote markers: keep them exactly as they are and check they're still attached to the right sentence afterwards.

Strip markdown in seconds

Find and replace clears every pair of asterisks in one pass, so you don't have to hunt for them in a long reply. Paste the reply into a document first, then:

  • Google Docs: choose Edit > Find and replace. Type ** next to Find, leave Replace with empty and Match using regular expressions unticked, then click Replace all.
  • Word: press Ctrl + H (or Home > Editing > Replace), type ** in Find what and leave Replace with empty. Keep Use wildcards unticked, because with wildcards on an asterisk stands for other characters. Then choose Replace All.

Single asterisks around italics are a different case: the same search would also catch any real asterisk in your text. Step through those one at a time with Replace rather than Replace All, which is what Microsoft's help recommends when you replace text anyway. Treat # the same way. Delete it by hand where it starts a heading line, and don't replace it everywhere, or hashtags and numbers like "#3" lose it too.

Example: cleaning an AI chat reply

On the left, the kind of thing a chat app puts on your clipboard when you copy a formatted answer (written for this page). On the right, the same text cleaned up and ready to paste:

Copied from a chat app

## Why remote onboarding matters **Remote onboarding** is crucial for new hires. It helps them: - feel connected from day one - understand team norms

Ready to paste

Remote onboarding is crucial for new hires. It helps them feel connected from day one and understand team norms.

The heading came out (you'll restore it in your document), the bold markers went, and the two-item list turned into one sentence. Now Humaniser has a real sentence to rewrite instead of a list of fragments.

After: put the formatting back

  1. Paste the result as plain text so it matches the paragraph around it: Ctrl + Shift + V in Google Docs and in Word (⌘ + Shift + V on a Mac), or Keep Text Only from Word's Paste Options.
  2. Restore headings with the document's heading styles.
  3. Reapply bold and italics where you had them.
  4. Add links back: select the words and press Ctrl + K (⌘ + K on a Mac).

The exact menus are in the steps for humanizing in Google Docs and for humanizing in Microsoft Word.

Make the rest real formatting

The parts you don't send to Humaniser, such as a heading or a bold label, can go straight into Google Docs as real formatting instead of symbols. Google's steps, on a computer:

  1. Choose Tools > Preferences and tick Enable Markdown.
  2. Copy the markdown part of the AI reply.
  3. Right-click where it should go and choose Paste from Markdown. Google converts the markdown as it pastes: a ## line becomes a level-2 heading, and words in double asterisks become bold.

Humanized prose comes back as plain text, so paste that part with Ctrl + Shift + V and style it afterwards. Slides have their own fit problems; the steps for text boxes and speaker notes cover PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Lists: as a paragraph or line by line

You have two good options for a bulleted or numbered list:

  • As a paragraph. Join the items into sentences, as in the example above, humanize them, and decide afterwards whether the result reads better as prose. Often it does.
  • Line by line. Keep each item on its own line with no bullet symbol. When you paste back, select the lines and turn them into a list again.

Short items such as "Due Friday" or a list of figures are best left alone. Text copied from a PDF has its own problems with line breaks, so fix the PDF line breaks first. Then paste your text and continue in Humaniser.

Sources

  1. Search and use find and replace, Google Docs Editors Help, . The page is undated; this is when we checked it
  2. Use Markdown in Google Docs, Slides, & Drawings, Google Docs Editors Help, . The page is undated; this is when we checked it
  3. Find and replace text in Word, Microsoft Support, . The page is undated; this is when we checked it
  4. Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs, Google Docs Editors Help, . The page is undated; this is when we checked it
  5. Control the formatting when you paste text, Microsoft Support, . The page is undated; this is when we checked it

Frequently asked questions

Why did my bold text disappear after humanizing?

The box on this page and Humaniser's editor are both plain-text boxes, so only the words and line breaks are sent. Bold, italics and links stay behind in your document. Reapply them after you paste the result back.

Should I remove markdown symbols before humanizing?

Yes. Symbols like ** and # are formatting instructions, not words. Left in, they get treated as part of the sentence and can end up in odd places in the result.

Does Humaniser keep my paragraph breaks?

Your paragraph breaks are sent as they are, and Humaniser shows its result with line breaks intact. Glance over the result before you paste it back, and add a break if two paragraphs have run together.

Can I turn markdown headings into real headings in Google Docs?

Yes, on a computer. Turn on Tools > Preferences > Enable Markdown, copy the markdown, then right-click in the document and choose Paste from Markdown. Use it for the parts you aren't humanizing, because Humaniser hands back plain text.

Related guides