Every developer needs a reliable set of text tools. Whether you're debugging encoding issues, looking up character codes, or converting data formats, having the right utilities bookmarked saves countless minutes of searching.
Here's my curated list of essential text-based tools that I use regularly.
Character References
When you need to know a character code or find a special symbol, these references are invaluable.
ASCII Character Table
The foundational reference for character codes. Essential when working with legacy systems, network protocols, or low-level programming.
ASCII Art Generator
Convert text to ASCII art banners. Multiple font styles available. Great for CLI tool headers and code comments.
Unicode Character Search
Search Unicode by name, code point, or drawing. Covers all 149,000+ characters including emoji.
Encoding & Conversion Tools
Converting between formats is a daily task. These tools handle the common cases.
URL Encoder/Decoder
Debug percent-encoding issues in URLs. Shows the actual bytes being encoded.
Base64 Encode/Decode
Convert between Base64 and text/binary. Essential for working with APIs and data URIs.
JSON Formatter
Pretty-print and validate JSON. Handles large files and escaped strings.
Command-Line Essentials
These CLI tools should be in every developer's toolkit:
- jq - Command-line JSON processor. Filter, transform, and format JSON from the terminal.
- sed - Stream editor for text transformation. Master the basics for powerful find-replace.
- awk - Pattern scanning and processing. Perfect for columnar data.
- xxd - Hex dump utility. See the actual bytes in any file.
- iconv - Convert between character encodings. Fix encoding problems at the file level.
- figlet - Generate ASCII art text banners from the command line.
Text Diff & Comparison
Diff Checker
Compare two texts and highlight differences. Useful for debugging output changes.
Regular Expression Tools
Regex101
Build and test regular expressions with real-time matching. Supports multiple regex flavours.
Quick Reference Bookmarks
Here's a condensed list for your browser bookmarks bar:
- ascii.co.uk - ASCII tables, text generator, and tools
- caniuse.com - Browser compatibility tables
- devdocs.io - Unified API documentation
- httpstatuses.com - HTTP status code reference
Browser DevTools Tips
Don't forget the tools built into your browser:
- Network tab: Inspect encoding headers (
Content-Type) - Console: Use
encodeURIComponent()andatob()/btoa()directly - Sources: Search across all loaded files with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F
The best tools are the ones you actually use. Bookmark these, learn their shortcuts, and they'll become second nature. When encoding issues or text processing tasks come up, you'll solve them in seconds rather than minutes.