Skip to main content
CalcChef

Palindrome Checker

Check whether a word or phrase is a palindrome. Ignores case, accents, spaces and punctuation, and reads letters and numbers in any script. How it works

Use the Palindrome Checker

Palindrome check
Type a word or phrase to check

About the Palindrome Checker

A palindrome reads the same backwards once case, accents, spaces and punctuation are ignored. "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama" folds to amanaplanacanalpanama and is one; "hello" folds to hello, reads olleh backwards, and is not. Digits count, so 12321 is a palindrome, and letters in any script are checked.

Texts and what the checker says

TextFolded forwardsFolded backwardsVerdict
racecarracecarracecarIt is a palindrome.
A man, a plan, a canal: PanamaamanaplanacanalpanamaamanaplanacanalpanamaIt is a palindrome.
Was it a car or a cat I saw?wasitacaroracatisawwasitacaroracatisawIt is a palindrome.
Never odd or evenneveroddorevenneveroddorevenIt is a palindrome.
tattarrattattattarrattattattarrattatIt is a palindrome.
123211232112321It is a palindrome.
hellohelloollehNot a palindrome.
level upleveluppulevelNot a palindrome.

Folded means lower-cased, with spaces, punctuation, emoji and the common accent marks (U+0300 to U+036F) removed. Letters, numbers and the vowel signs of scripts such as Devanagari, Thai and Arabic are compared.

How to use this tool

  1. Type or paste a word, phrase or number.
  2. Read the verdict as you type: "It is a palindrome." or "Not a palindrome."
  3. For a non-palindrome, compare the folded text forwards and backwards to see where they split.

Frequently asked questions

Does a palindrome checker ignore spaces, punctuation and capital letters?
This one does. It lower-cases the text and drops spaces, punctuation and emoji before comparing. Accent marks in the U+0300 to U+036F range go too, so é counts as e.
Why does my phrase fail when it looks right?
Every letter and digit counts, so one extra or missing letter breaks the mirror. "Was it a car or a cat I saw it" folds to wasitacaroracatisawit, which reverses to tiwasitacaroracatisaw, so it is not a palindrome. Compare the two lines on the page to find the stray letter.
Can numbers be palindromes?
Yes, digits count as characters. 12321 is a palindrome, and a text that mixes letters and digits is compared as one string. A single letter or digit is a palindrome too, because it reads the same both ways.
What does it show when the text is not a palindrome?
It shows the folded text forwards and backwards. "level up" folds to levelup and reverses to pulevel, so the page reports it as not a palindrome and shows both.
Does it work for Russian, Greek or Hindi text?
Yes, letters in any script are compared, but the accent marks in U+0300 to U+036F are dropped in every script: Cyrillic й is read as и, ё as е and Greek ά as α. Devanagari, Thai and Arabic vowel signs are kept. The reversal works on code points, so in scripts where a vowel sign sits after its consonant, reversing moves the sign and the result may not match what a native reader sees.

Checking words, phrases and numbers

Dates and times are a common check. Slashes, colons and spaces are ignored, so 02/02/2020 folds to 02022020 and 10:01 folds to 1001, and both read the same backwards. Word boundaries do not matter either: a phrase passes when its letters mirror each other, wherever the spaces fall.

Type or paste the text and the verdict appears as you type; a link such as ?text=racecar fills the box. A palindrome shows its folded letters reversed. Anything else shows the folded letters forwards and backwards, so you can find the letter that breaks the mirror. An empty box, or text with no letter or number, gets a prompt and no verdict.

The folding rule

The text is folded the same way as in the anagram checker: lower-cased, split into base letters and accent marks, and the common accent marks (Unicode U+0300 to U+036F) dropped. Several scripts share that range, so é becomes e, Cyrillic й becomes и and Greek ά becomes α. The vowel signs of Devanagari, Thai and Arabic sit outside it and are kept. Spaces, punctuation and emoji are ignored. The folded text is a palindrome when it equals itself reversed.

Example: A man, a plan, a canal: Panama folds to amanaplanacanalpanama, which reads the same backwards. level up folds to levelup and reverses to pulevel, so it does not.

The reversal works on code points, not on displayed characters. In scripts where a vowel sign sits after its consonant, reversing moves the sign, so such text may not read the same to a native reader. Input is limited to 10,000 characters.

Fun Fact: James Joyce coined tattarrattat in Ulysses (1922) for a knock on a door. At 12 letters, Wikipedia reports, the Oxford English Dictionary treats it as the longest single-word palindrome in English, while Guinness lists a 19-letter Finnish word, saippuakivikauppias, as the longest in everyday use.

Related Tools

View all tools
Text

Word Counter

Paste or type text to count words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines, plus reading time at 200 wpm and speaking time at 130.

Text

Case Converter

Convert text to UPPER CASE, lower case, Title Case, Sentence case, camelCase, PascalCase, snake_case, kebab-case or CONSTANT_CASE in one click.

Text

Reverse String

Reverse text by character, word order, letters in each word or line order. Emoji, flags and accented letters stay whole instead of breaking apart.

Text

Remove Duplicate Lines

Remove duplicate lines, or comma, tab or space separated items, keeping the first or last copy, with case, trimming, blank-line and sort options.

Text

Text Replacement

Find and replace text in a pasted block, as plain text or regex, with a case option. Replace All gives the result and the number of replacements made.

Dev

Lorem Ipsum Generator

Generate lorem ipsum placeholder text as paragraphs, sentences or words, up to 100 paragraphs or 5,000 words, with optional HTML paragraph tags.