Text to Slug Converter

Text to Slug Converter is a comprehensive free online tool that transforms any text into clean, SEO-friendly URL slugs with full control over formatting options including case conversion, punctuation handling, word separators, and length limits. Whether you're a web developer creating URLs for dynamic pages, a content creator optimizing blog post URLs, an SEO specialist crafting keyword-rich slugs, or anyone needing to convert text into URL-safe format, this tool provides instant slug generation with professional-grade formatting. The tool offers four powerful customization options: lowercase conversion (enabled by default) transforms all text to lowercase for consistent URL formatting following web standards and SEO best practices; punctuation removal (enabled by default) strips special characters and punctuation while preserving letters, numbers, and basic separators; word separator selection allows choosing between hyphens (-) which are preferred for SEO and better readability, or underscores (_) for specific technical requirements or legacy systems; and maximum length setting (0 for unlimited, or any value 1-200) truncates slugs to fit specific system requirements while intelligently avoiding partial words at the cutoff point. All text processing happens entirely client-side in your browser using JavaScript string manipulation and regular expressions, ensuring complete privacy—your text never leaves your device, isn't uploaded to any server, and isn't stored anywhere. Common use cases include creating SEO-friendly URLs from blog post titles where clear, descriptive slugs improve search engine rankings and user experience; generating URL paths for CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, or custom systems that require slug input; converting product names into e-commerce URLs that are both human-readable and search-engine-optimized; creating file names from document titles where spaces and special characters aren't allowed; generating API endpoint paths that follow REST conventions and naming standards; building URL parameters for tracking campaigns or dynamic content; converting category names into URL-safe identifiers for hierarchical navigation; and transforming any arbitrary text into URL-compatible format for web applications, routing systems, or database keys. For SEO professionals, this tool is essential for crafting keyword-rich URL slugs that improve search rankings—URLs with descriptive slugs rank better than generic IDs or encoded strings, and hyphens are generally preferred over underscores because search engines treat hyphens as word separators but may interpret underscores as connecting characters. Best practices include keeping slugs between 40-60 characters for optimal balance between descriptiveness and brevity, removing stop words like 'the', 'and', 'or' for cleaner URLs, using target keywords naturally without stuffing, avoiding special characters that may cause encoding issues, and ensuring slugs are human-readable and give users/search engines clear indication of page content. For web developers, the tool handles all the common slug generation requirements: lowercasing for case-insensitive URL handling (URLs are technically case-sensitive but lowercasing prevents duplicate content issues), removing punctuation to avoid encoding problems and ensure broad compatibility, replacing spaces with separators since spaces must be encoded as %20 in URLs which looks unprofessional, removing or replacing accented characters for maximum compatibility across systems, preventing duplicate separators that can occur when multiple spaces or punctuation appear consecutively, trimming leading/trailing separators for clean URL structure, and truncating to maximum length while avoiding cutting words mid-character. The slug generation algorithm follows a multi-step process: first, trim whitespace from input; second, optionally convert to lowercase; third, optionally remove punctuation and special characters keeping only alphanumeric characters, spaces, hyphens, and underscores; fourth, replace all spaces and existing separators with the chosen separator (hyphen or underscore); fifth, remove consecutive duplicate separators; sixth, trim leading and trailing separators; seventh, optionally truncate to maximum length and remove any trailing separator that may result from truncation. This ensures clean, professional slugs that work across all systems and platforms. The tool handles edge cases gracefully: text with only special characters produces empty slug with clear indication; very long text can be truncated to any specified length; text with multiple consecutive spaces gets consolidated into single separators; leading/trailing spaces don't create leading/trailing separators; mixed case text converts consistently to lowercase; Unicode characters including emojis are handled according to JavaScript's character classification; and accented characters like é, ñ, ü are preserved or removed based on punctuation removal setting (for maximum compatibility, enable punctuation removal which strips accents). The generated slug is displayed prominently in a large, easy-to-read format with immediate copy functionality for quick workflow integration. The URL preview shows how the slug appears in a real URL context (example.com/blog/your-slug-here) helping visualize the final result and make informed decisions about slug quality. The character count displays the slug length in real-time, helping ensure slugs meet any system requirements or stay within recommended SEO length limits. The real-time generation means slugs update instantly as you type or change options, providing immediate visual feedback without clicking generate buttons. Copy functionality uses the modern Clipboard API with fallbacks for maximum browser compatibility, and successful copy operations show confirmation toast notifications. The tool works with all text input including ASCII characters, Unicode, emojis (though emoji slugs aren't recommended for URLs), numbers, and special symbols. For CMS integration, many platforms like WordPress automatically generate slugs from titles, but this tool is useful for previewing slug generation before publishing, creating slugs for systems without automatic generation, ensuring slugs meet specific requirements before content creation, and planning URL structure during site architecture. For e-commerce platforms, product URLs with descriptive slugs improve SEO and user trust compared to generic product IDs—'wireless-bluetooth-headphones' is far more effective than 'product-12345'. For multilingual sites, slug generation for non-English text works but may need additional processing for transliteration (converting characters like ñ to n). The responsive design ensures the tool works perfectly on desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones with all controls easily accessible on any screen size. No character limits on input text, no usage restrictions, and no account required—generate unlimited slugs completely free. The tool works offline once loaded, making it reliable even without internet connectivity. Performance is optimized to handle slugs of any length with instant generation even for very long input text. Understanding URL slug best practices is essential for modern web development: slugs should be descriptive enough to convey page content but concise enough to be easily shared and remembered; they should include target keywords naturally for SEO benefits; they should use hyphens rather than underscores for search engine optimization; they should avoid stop words when possible for cleaner, more focused URLs; they should be lowercase to prevent case sensitivity issues; and they should be permanent once published to avoid breaking links and losing SEO value. This tool follows all these best practices by default while allowing customization for specific requirements.