Strikethrough Text: How to Cross Out Words Anywhere
S̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ text does something no other formatting does: it shows the reader what you decided against. A crossed-out word is a joke, a correction, a completed task, a price that used to be higher — the deletion is the message.
There are two completely different ways to produce it, and knowing which one you need saves a lot of frustration. This guide covers both, plus the shortcut for every major app.
Method 1: built-in formatting
Most editors have strikethrough built in, applied as formatting on top of normal letters. In Microsoft Word press Alt+H then 4, or find the ab button on the Home ribbon. In Google Docs it is Alt+Shift+5 on Windows and Command+Shift+X on Mac. In Excel it is Control+5. Discord uses markdown — wrap your text in double tildes, ~~like this~~. WhatsApp uses single tildes. Slack also uses single tildes, and Notion uses double.
Built-in formatting is the better choice whenever it is available: it is accessible to screen readers, searchable, and it prints correctly. Its limit is portability — copy formatted text into a plain field like an Instagram bio, a form input, or a game chat and the strike vanishes, because there is nowhere for the formatting layer to live.
Method 2: Unicode combining marks
The portable method uses a Unicode character called the combining long stroke overlay. It is not a letter — it is a mark designed to attach to the character before it and draw a line through it. Place one after every letter in a word and the whole word appears crossed out.
Because the marks are part of the text itself, the effect survives copy and paste into places that strip formatting entirely: bios, usernames where permitted, plain text fields, chat boxes, spreadsheets, and CSV files. Our Glitch Text tool generates it — the Strikethrough style in the feed — along with slashed and underlined variants built the same way.
Choosing between them
Use built-in formatting inside documents, spreadsheets, email, and any app that supports it, because it keeps the text clean underneath. Use the Unicode version only when the destination has no formatting at all — social bios, plain input fields, or when you need the strike to survive being copied through several apps.
A useful test: if you can select the text and see a toolbar, use the toolbar. If the field is a single plain box with no styling options, use Unicode.
What people actually use it for
Pricing is the commercial classic — showing an old price crossed out next to a new one, which works in bios and marketplace listings where real formatting is unavailable. Task lists use it for completed items. Editors and writers use it to show revisions transparently rather than silently deleting. And online, crossing out a word you clearly meant is a whole comedic register: saying the quiet part, then pretending to take it back.
The catches worth knowing
Unicode strikethrough has real downsides. Screen readers may announce the combining mark repeatedly or garble the word, so never use it for essential information. Some platforms strip combining marks in specific fields, particularly usernames and search boxes, leaving your text unstruck. Character limits count every mark, so a struck word costs roughly double against a 150-character bio. And search engines and site search generally cannot match struck text to the plain word, so it hides content from being found.
One more: the line renders at slightly different heights across fonts and devices, so a word that looks perfectly crossed on your phone may look underlined-through-the-middle elsewhere. Test on a second device before using it somewhere permanent.
Related effects from the same mechanism
Once you understand combining marks, several other looks come free. A combining low line produces u̲n̲d̲e̲r̲l̲i̲n̲e̲d̲ text, a double low line gives a thicker underline, and a short solidus overlay produces a s̷l̷a̷s̷h̷e̷d̷ look. Stack many marks per letter and you get zalgo — the corrupted glitch aesthetic, which is the same trick pushed to extremes.
All of these sit in the same feed in our Glitch Text tool, so you can compare strikethrough against underline and slash on your own words before copying.
Removing strikethrough from text you received
If someone sends you struck text and you need it clean — pasting a crossed-out price into a spreadsheet, quoting it in a document — the marks can be stripped. In most editors, selecting the text and clearing formatting removes built-in strikethrough. For the Unicode kind, formatting commands do nothing, because the strike is part of the characters.
The fix there is Unicode normalization: decompose the text and drop the combining-mark category, which leaves the original letters untouched underneath. Pasting into a strict plain-text field sometimes does it automatically, since fields that reject combining marks discard them and keep the letters.
Cross out your text
Open the Glitch Text tool, type your words, and copy the Strikethrough result — it works in bios, chats, listings, and anywhere formatting normally disappears. If you are working inside a document instead, use the keyboard shortcut for your app from the list above; it will serve you better.