The Best Free Text Tools for Writers, Developers and Content Creators

Text is the raw material of almost everything created on a computer — code, content, documentation, email, design specs, marketing copy, technical writing, and everything in between. Yet most people cobble together their text workflow from a mix of heavyweight desktop editors, slow web apps, and manual processes that could easily be automated. SoftStash offers a complete set of free, browser-based text tools covering every common text task that writers, developers, and content creators face daily.

None of these tools require an account. None run ads. All of them process text locally in your browser — nothing you type is sent to a server. This guide walks through each tool, what it does, and exactly when to reach for it.

Text Case Converter — Stop Reformatting Manually

Case formatting is one of those small tasks that appears constantly in development and writing contexts but has no satisfying keyboard shortcut in most editors. The SoftStash Text Case Converter handles every common case transformation in a single place:

• camelCase — for JavaScript variables and object properties: myVariableName
• PascalCase — for class names and React components: MyComponentName
• snake_case — for Python variables and database column names: my_variable_name
• SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE — for constants and environment variables: MY_ENV_VARIABLE
• kebab-case — for URL slugs and CSS class names: my-class-name
• Title Case — for headings, titles, and proper nouns: My Article Title
• UPPERCASE and lowercase — for all the obvious cases
• Sentence case — capitalizes only the first letter of each sentence

Paste any text, select the target case, and copy the result. This eliminates the manual find-and-replace operations that developers use to rename variables across formats, and the careful hand-editing that writers do when reformatting titles or headings.

Markdown Editor — Write and Preview Simultaneously

Markdown has become the lingua franca of technical documentation, README files, blog posts, notes, and anywhere that text needs lightweight formatting without the overhead of a full word processor. The SoftStash Markdown Editor provides a split-pane interface: write raw Markdown on the left, see the formatted HTML preview on the right, in real time.

This is invaluable when drafting content for platforms that accept Markdown — GitHub, GitLab, Notion, Obsidian, Ghost, Dev.to, and many others. It is also the fastest way to check that your heading hierarchy is correct, that your links resolve visually, and that your code blocks render with the right syntax before you commit or publish.

Who this tool is for

• Developers writing README files and documentation
• Technical writers drafting content for Markdown-based CMS platforms
• Students and researchers taking structured notes
• Anyone who needs to format text for GitHub Issues, pull request descriptions, or wiki pages

Lorem Ipsum Generator — Fill Space with Professional Placeholder Text

Every designer and developer working on a layout before the final copy is ready needs placeholder text. The standard has been Lorem Ipsum since the 1500s, and for good reason — it has the visual rhythm of real Latin text without any actual meaning, which prevents readers from getting distracted by the content instead of evaluating the layout.

The SoftStash Lorem Ipsum Generator lets you specify exactly how much placeholder text you need — by paragraphs, sentences, or words — and generates it instantly. Copy it directly into your design tool, mockup, or development template.

This is one of those tools that takes thirty seconds to use but saves the awkward experience of typing "placeholder text placeholder text" repeatedly or copying from a Wikipedia article just to fill a content block.

Text Counter — Know Your Character, Word, and Paragraph Counts

Different contexts impose different text length constraints. Social media platforms have character limits. SEO best practices specify optimal meta description lengths (around 155 characters) and title tag lengths (under 60 characters). Academic submissions require word counts. SMS has a 160 character limit. Book chapters are evaluated by word and page estimates.

The SoftStash Text Counter gives you live counts across every dimension simultaneously: characters (with and without spaces), words, sentences, and paragraphs. Paste your text and all counts update instantly — no submission, no reload, no waiting.

Writers can use it to check article lengths. Developers can verify that a database field will not overflow its character limit. Content creators can confirm their meta descriptions will not be truncated in search results.

Text Diff Viewer — See Exactly What Changed Between Two Versions

Comparing two versions of a document, a configuration file, a legal clause, or any block of text is a task that comes up constantly in editing, code review, and content management. The SoftStash Text Diff Viewer takes two text inputs, compares them line by line, and highlights additions, deletions, and changes with clear color coding.

This is the same kind of diff view you see in Git pull requests, but available instantly for any two blocks of text — no repository needed, no command line, no tooling setup.

When to use Text Diff

• Comparing a revised contract clause against the original to find what counsel changed
• Checking what changed between two versions of a configuration file you received
• Reviewing edits a collaborator made to a document when track changes was not enabled
• Verifying that a code snippet was copied correctly from a reference source
• Comparing the output of two API responses to find differences in structure or values

HTML Formatter — Make HTML Readable (or Tiny)

HTML served from production web applications is frequently minified — all whitespace removed to reduce file size. This makes it completely unreadable when you need to inspect it. Conversely, HTML written by hand or exported from a tool can be inconsistently indented and hard to parse.

The SoftStash HTML Formatter works in both directions:

• Format/Prettify: Takes minified or messy HTML and outputs it with consistent indentation and line breaks, making the structure immediately readable
• Minify: Takes readable HTML and strips all unnecessary whitespace, producing the smallest possible output for production use

Frontend developers use this constantly when inspecting third-party HTML, debugging email templates, or cleaning up HTML generated by WYSIWYG editors (which often produce verbose, poorly structured markup).

Notepad — The Always-Ready Scratchpad

Sometimes you do not need a formatted document or a structured tool — you just need somewhere to put text right now. The SoftStash Notepad is a plain text area that auto-saves everything you type to localStorage. Close the browser, reopen it, and your text is still there.

This is ideal for temporary notes during a meeting, code snippets you are about to paste somewhere, draft copy you are iterating on, or any text that needs to live somewhere for the next few hours or days. No file name to choose, no save dialog to dismiss, no cloud sync to wait for. Just type.

Typing Test — Measure and Improve Your WPM

Typing speed matters more than most people acknowledge. A developer who types at 100 WPM versus 60 WPM gains roughly 40% more throughput on all keyboard-intensive work — not just writing code, but also writing documentation, emails, Slack messages, and commit messages. The same applies to writers, analysts, support staff, and anyone else who spends significant time at a keyboard.

The SoftStash Typing Test measures your words per minute and accuracy against a standard passage. It gives you an honest benchmark of where you stand and, if you test regularly, a clear view of whether practice is improving your speed and accuracy.

Most adults type between 40 and 60 WPM. Touch typists who have deliberately practiced often reach 80–100 WPM. Professional transcriptionists and competitive typists can exceed 120–140 WPM. Wherever you are on that spectrum, the typing test gives you data to work with.

Rich Text Editor — WYSIWYG Editing in the Browser

Not everyone is comfortable with Markdown or HTML, and not every context requires technical formatting. The SoftStash Rich Text Editor provides a familiar word-processor-style interface — bold, italic, underline, headings, lists, links — where you see the formatted result as you type, without needing to know any markup syntax.

This is useful for drafting formatted content that will be pasted into an email client, a CMS rich text field, a presentation tool, or any context that accepts formatted text. It is also a clean way to format text when collaborating with non-technical team members who are not comfortable with Markdown.

Why One Suite Instead of Nine Different Websites

The common alternative to SoftStash is searching for each tool individually when you need it — "text diff tool online", "lorem ipsum generator", "HTML formatter" — and landing on a different website each time. Those websites typically carry ads, may impose word count limits, often require account creation for certain features, and vary widely in quality and reliability.

Having all of these tools in one place means you know exactly where to go and what to expect. The interface is consistent. There are no ads. There are no limits on text length. And because everything processes locally, there is no privacy risk regardless of what text you paste in.

Bookmark SoftStash, or pin a few tabs, and these tools will be ready the moment you need them — which, if you write code or content for a living, is probably several times today.