Palindrome Checker

Does it read the same backwards?

About Palindrome Checker

A palindrome checker tells you whether a word, phrase or number reads the same backwards as forwards, ignoring case, spaces and punctuation, as you type.

How to use

  1. Type or paste the text. There is nothing to click; the answer updates on every keystroke.
  2. Read the result line: "Yes, this is a palindrome" or "No, this is not a palindrome".
  3. The Normalised box shows exactly what was compared, with a Copy button.

What it checks

  • Text is lowercased and every character that is not a Latin letter a–z or digit 0–9 is removed before comparison. "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama" becomes amanaplanacanalpanama.
  • Spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and punctuation never affect the result, so sentence palindromes work.
  • Digits count, so 12321 is a palindrome.
  • Accented letters and other scripts are stripped rather than compared, so a palindrome in Greek or Hindi will not be detected.
  • Empty input, or input with no letters or digits, gives no result rather than a false yes.

Example

Was it a car or a cat I saw?
→ normalised: wasitacaroracatisaw
→ Yes, this is a palindrome.

Privacy

Runs in the browser. No request is made, and nothing is stored.

Frequently asked questions

What is a palindrome?
A word, phrase or number that reads the same in both directions, such as "level", "racecar" or 2002. Sentence palindromes like "Never odd or even" ignore spaces and punctuation.
Do spaces and punctuation count in a palindrome?
By convention, no. Phrase palindromes are judged on letters and digits only, which is why "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama" qualifies even though the raw characters do not mirror.
Is a single letter a palindrome?
Technically yes, since one character trivially reads the same both ways. Most puzzle definitions ask for at least two or three characters to be interesting.
What is the longest palindrome word in English?
Common dictionaries list "rotator", "deified" and "racecar" (7 letters). "Tattarrattat", 12 letters, appears in James Joyce's Ulysses as a knock on the door and is often cited as the longest.