Bidirectional overrides
RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING (U+202B)
Opens a right-to-left run inside surrounding text, until a matching POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING closes it.
- Codepoint
U+202B- Also written as
u202b\u202b‫- Category
- Bidirectional overrides
- Removed by default
- Yes
- Governing option
- No option needed
- Can be load-bearing
- No
Copy and paste U+202B
To copy and paste RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING (U+202B), press the button: the character itself goes to your clipboard, and Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) pastes it anywhere you can type.
Careful: this is a bidirectional control. Pasted into a file name, a message or source code, it can make the text display in a different order from the one it is stored in.
Where it comes from
Legacy Hebrew and Arabic document workflows, and text copied out of them.
Why it matters
Like its left-to-right twin it nests, leaks past the end of the intended span when unterminated, and is completely invisible while doing it.
Before and after
The Hebrew word reads right to left on its own. The embedding around it adds nothing but risk.
The character is shown as a labelled chip so you can see where it sits. In your text it draws nothing at all.
When it is legitimate
Superseded by U+2067 RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATE, which cannot leak. Genuine Hebrew and Arabic prose needs no embedding at all: the bidi algorithm reads the direction from the letters.
How to remove it
The default pass removes it, unconditionally.
Working in a file rather than a paste? The document report for .docx, .odt and .html finds it inside the file, together with hidden runs and tracked changes, without you having to open it. If the question is what the rest of the writing does rather than what this one character does, count the tell words and phrases per thousand words and see where each habit sits, with no score and no claim about who wrote the text.
Is it an AI watermark?
Not a watermark
No. A legacy layout control from bidi-aware editors. Nothing to do with generated text.
No connection to machine-generated text. It comes from software, from a keyboard, or from a person.
Questions
Will removing it break my Hebrew?
No. Hebrew and Arabic letters carry their own directionality, so the bidi algorithm lays them out correctly with no control characters present.
What about the marks next to the text?
U+200E and U+200F are treated differently: next to right-to-left text they are kept, because there they resolve genuine ambiguity.
Check your own text
Paste anything into the cleaner to see every hidden character it contains, with position, codepoint and what happens to each one. Nothing is uploaded.
Check your own textClean it in Chrome as you pasteClean it on your Mac with one keystrokeAll characters