Date and page ranges
2018–2022, pages 44–48, §§ 10–20. The range dash is standard typography and standard trouble for anything that parses the text afterwards.
Free · Private · Runs in your browser
PDF en dash remover — clean the range dashes out of a PDF
Upload the document, pick the replacement, press once. Every en dash and figure dash is rewritten in the extracted text — and the ranges read normally again.
Clean a PDF in your browser
Text with ASCII ranges
Ranges are where PDF pastes go quietly wrong, and the whole document is where they live. The source file set its date spans and page ranges in en dashes — or in the digit-wide figure dash (U+2012) that tables prefer — and the text layer carries them all: 2018–2022 becomes a range a spreadsheet will not sort, a script will not parse, a validator rejects. This page takes the PDF directly, so you skip the copy-and-paste step entirely.
The tool targets exactly that family: the en dash (U+2013) and the figure dash (U+2012), and nothing else. Em dashes, hyphens and every other character pass through untouched, which makes it safe to run on the mixed text a PDF paragraph usually is. Choose the replacement that matches what the ranges need: a plain hyphen is the conventional fix, a space suits prose, “nothing” deletes outright.
The output is text you can use immediately. The cleaned document appears in a text box on the page, with a copy button and a .txt download beside it — paste it into Word, Google Docs or your CMS, or keep the file. One press later the ranges read 2018-2022, parse like 2018-2022 and sort like 2018-2022.
Everything happens in your browser. The file is read locally, the text is cleaned in memory, and the result is shown on the page — no upload step, no server, no copy retained anywhere. One honest limit: the tool reads the text layer, so it works on text-based PDFs — scanned pages carry their words as pictures, and there is nothing to extract. Password-protected files are refused, and the size limit is 25.0 MB per file.
Where PDF en dashes hide
The usual suspects, in order of how often they bite.
Tables of numbers
The figure dash (U+2012) is exactly one digit wide, so numeric columns stay aligned — and so the dash is nearly indistinguishable from a hyphen on screen.
One family, one pass
Both en-family variants are rewritten together, so tables and prose in the same document come out consistent — every range lands on the character you picked.
Related dash tools
PDF pastes rarely stop at one broken character. The rest of the fix lives here.
PDF Dash Remover
All three dash families at once, from the same upload.
PDF Em Dash Remover
The same fix for the long dashes a PDF carries.
PDF Hyphen Remover
Un-hyphenate the words a PDF broke at line ends.
En Dash Remover
The whole-en-family cleanup for pasted text, PDF or not.
Dash Converter
Em dash ⇄ en dash ⇄ hyphen, converted in place.
Line Break Remover
Join the lines the PDF broke at every printed row.
Questions
Which characters does this tool remove?
The en-dash family: the en dash (U+2013) and the figure dash (U+2012). Em dashes, hyphens and every other character are untouched.
What is the best replacement for a range?
A plain hyphen: 2018-2022 is what every parser, spreadsheet and search expects. The tool defaults to a hyphen for exactly that reason; switch the chip to a space when your text is prose-heavy.
Why is the figure dash a problem in a PDF?
It looks like a hyphen and is not one. Columns aligned with it survive the PDF, but the moment the text is compared, sorted or parsed, the character fails every check written for U+002D.
Will this fix 2018–2022 into 2018-2022?
Yes — that is the single most common use of this page. Pick the hyphen replacement, upload, press once, and every range in the document is back to ASCII.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The file is processed entirely in your browser: pdf.js extracts the text locally, the dash engine runs as ordinary page JavaScript, and the cleaned text is written on your device. There is no upload endpoint to send anything to.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
No. A scan is a picture of text with no characters underneath, so there is nothing to extract. Run the pages through OCR first, then clean the resulting text-based PDF.
How large a file can I clean?
25.0 MB per file. Larger documents are usually fine split in half — PDF readers can extract a page range into a smaller file, and each half cleans independently.
Ready to clean your PDF?
Drop the file in, pick the replacement, press once. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored — every range back to ASCII in seconds.
Clean a PDF now