Unicode Text Normalizer

Unicode normalization converts text to a standard form where characters with multiple possible encodings use just one consistent encoding. This ensures that visually identical text is also identical at the byte level for comparison and storage.

NFC (Composed) is recommended for most purposes: web content, databases, and general text storage. It creates compact text with precomposed characters. Use NFKC if you also want to normalize visual variants like ligatures and symbols.

The same visual character can have multiple Unicode representations. An accented letter might be one codepoint or a base letter plus combining mark. Normalizing both strings to the same form makes them match if they're visually identical.

C (Composed) and D (Decomposed) handle canonical equivalence (same character, different encoding). KC and KD additionally handle compatibility equivalence (visually similar but distinct characters, like ligatures). KC/KD are more aggressive transformations.

NFC and NFD preserve meaning—they only standardize encoding. NFKC and NFKD may change meaning by converting compatibility characters: the "fi" ligature becomes separate letters, which might matter for exact text reproduction.