Remove the asterisks from ChatGPT text

What you pasted

### Before you travel**Passport:** valid for 6 months**Insurance:** print the policy- Charge the power bank- Download the maps

What you wanted

Before you travel

Passport: valid for 6 months

Insurance: print the policy

Charge the power bank
Download the maps

What the symbols mean

ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot write in markdown: plain text where a few symbols stand for formatting. The chat window reads the symbols and shows you bold text and headings. Anything that does not read markdown, which is most places you paste, shows the symbols instead.

You see	It meant	In Word or Docs
`word`	Bold	Select the word, Ctrl+B
`word or _word_`	Italic	Ctrl+I
`# Title, ## Section, ### Part`	Headings, biggest to smallest	A heading style from the Home tab or the Styles menu
`- item or * item`	A bullet point	The bullet list button
`1. item`	A numbered point	The numbered list button
`\| a \| b \|`	A table row	See the table guide
`word`	Code, or a name typed exactly	Usually just remove the marks
`> text`	A quotation	Indent it, or use a quote style
`---`	A line across the page	Delete it, or insert a horizontal line

Better than removing: keep the formatting

Deleting the symbols loses the bold and the headings with them. Two ways keep them:

Copy the formatted version. In the chat, select the answer with your mouse and copy, instead of using the Copy button. Paste into Word with Merge Formatting. Our Word guide walks through it.
Let Google Docs read the symbols. Paste the text with the symbols into a Google Doc using right-click, then Paste from Markdown. Google's help page on markdown in Docs lists it next to Copy as Markdown, and the bold, italics, links and headings convert. From Docs you can copy into Word or download a Word file. Details in Copy ChatGPT to Google Docs.

Remove them in Word

Press Ctrl+H (Control+H on a Mac) or go to Home > Editing > Replace. Microsoft's Find and Replace page has the Mac variant, which starts from the search box at the top right.

Find what **, Replace with nothing, Replace All.
Find what ### (keep the space), Replace All. Then ## , then # . Doing the longest first stops # leaving stray marks behind.
Find what - at the start of lines. Replace All, then select those lines and click the bullet button. If your text has real dashes you want to keep, replace ^p- instead: ^p is Word's code for a paragraph break, so it matches only dashes that start a line. Replace it with ^p.

Single asterisks are the exception: *word* is italic, but a lone * might be a real asterisk in your text. Look at each one with Find Next rather than Replace All.

Remove them in Google Docs

Open Edit > Find and replace. The same three passes work: **, then ### , ## and # , then - . For the dashes, tick Match using regular expressions and search for ^- ; the ^ means "start of a line", so dashes inside sentences are left alone.

Stop ChatGPT doing it

For one answer, add a line to your message: "Plain text only, no markdown, no asterisks." For every answer, use custom instructions. OpenAI's help page says: open Settings, then Personalization, make sure Enable customization is on, and type into the custom instructions field. Free accounts get 1,500 characters. Something like:

Reply in plain text. Do not use markdown: no asterisks, no hash marks, no bullet symbols. If I ask for a list or a table, use plain numbering or tabs.

Be honest with yourself about the result. It cuts the symbols down a great deal, but they come back now and then, especially in long answers and in lists; a 17-reply thread on OpenAI's own forum is people comparing wordings for this. When one slips through, the Find and Replace above takes a minute.

You may not want to turn it off at all. The symbols exist because they turn into real formatting wherever markdown is understood, and that includes Google Docs. If your text usually ends up in a document, keeping the markdown and pasting it the right way gives you headings and bold for free.

The app we are building for this

When the symbols arrive as a saved file rather than a chat answer, AsItIs opens it as a clean document: headings, bold text and tables, with no symbols to remove. You change only what you want, everything else stays exactly as it was, and you export a PDF or Word file. Mac and Windows, not out yet; the waitlist is open.

Join the waitlist How it works

Questions

Why does ChatGPT use asterisks?

ChatGPT writes in markdown, where two asterisks around a word mean bold and one asterisk means italic. The chat window shows the bold and hides the asterisks. When the plain version of the text is copied, the asterisks come with it.

How do I make ChatGPT stop using markdown?

Add a custom instruction. In ChatGPT, open Settings, then Personalization, make sure customization is turned on, and in the custom instructions field write: Reply in plain text. Do not use markdown: no asterisks, no hash marks, no bullet symbols, unless I ask for a table or a list. It applies to new conversations. It slips now and then; a one-line reminder in the chat fixes a single answer.

Is there a tool that removes asterisks from ChatGPT text?

Many websites offer one, but you have to paste your text into them. You do not need to: Find and Replace in Word or Google Docs removes the symbols, and Google Docs' Paste from Markdown turns them into real bold and headings instead of deleting them.

Should I remove the symbols or keep the formatting?

If the text is going into a document, keep the formatting: paste into Google Docs with Paste from Markdown, or paste into Word with Merge Formatting. Remove the symbols only when the text is going somewhere that cannot show bold at all, such as a plain-text form or an SMS.

Sources, read on 16 October 2026: Microsoft Support, Find and replace text in Word; Google Docs Editors Help, Search and use find and replace and Use Markdown in Google Docs, Slides, and Drawings; OpenAI Help Center, ChatGPT Custom Instructions. The forum thread is "How to prevent GPT from outputting responses in Markdown format?" on community.openai.com, September 2024.