Which bullet characters does it recognize?

The round bullet •, hyphen -, asterisk *, and a few common variants (▪, ◦, ‣, ·). Any item starting with one of these followed by an optional space has that marker stripped; items without a recognized marker are left unchanged.

Will it strip a hyphen that's actually part of the item's text, like a negative number?

It only strips a leading hyphen when it appears at the very start of the item followed by whitespace or the end of the item, matching typical bullet formatting. If your items commonly start with a hyphen as real content (like "-5 degrees"), review the output carefully since the pattern is a best-effort heuristic, not a semantic check.

What happens to items that never had a bullet?

They pass through completely unchanged, since the tool only modifies items where a bullet marker is actually detected at the start.

List Item Bullet Remover - Strip Bullet Points From a List

Overview

Introduction

Lists copied from documents, presentations, or web pages often bring their bullet markers along, which get in the way when you just want the plain text items.

This tool detects and strips leading bullet characters from every item in a list.

What Is List Item Bullet Remover?

A list transformer that removes a leading bullet marker, •, -, *, or a common variant, from the start of every item that has one.

It works with newline, comma, or custom-delimited lists, and leaves items without a recognized bullet completely untouched.

How List Item Bullet Remover Works

The list is split into items using the resolved separator, and each item is tested against a regular expression matching a leading bullet character from a small recognized set, followed by an optional space.

Items matching the pattern have that marker stripped; items that don't match are left exactly as they were, and the result is rejoined using the list separator.

When To Use List Item Bullet Remover

Use it when you've pasted a bulleted list from a document or slide deck and need the plain text items without the markers.

It's also useful before adding a different bullet style, since it clears out the old markers first.

Often used alongside List Item Bullet Adder, List Item Counter Remover and List Item Unquoter.

Features

Advantages

Recognizes several common bullet characters automatically.
Safe on mixed lists, only items with a detected bullet are modified.
Works with any of the supported list separator modes.

Limitations

Only recognizes a fixed set of bullet characters; unusual custom bullet symbols outside that set won't be detected.
Cannot always distinguish an item's real content starting with a hyphen from an actual bullet marker.
Only removes a single leading bullet per item, not repeated or nested markers.

Examples

Removing round bullets

Input

• apple
• banana

Output

apple
banana

The leading • and its trailing space are stripped from each item.

Mixed bulleted and plain items

Input

- first
second (no bullet)

Output

first
second (no bullet)

Only the item with a detected bullet marker is changed; the other item passes through untouched.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Run this before List Item Bullet Adder if you want to replace an existing bullet style with a different one.
Review output for items that legitimately begin with a hyphen as real content, since the heuristic can't always tell the difference.
Use the matching separator mode for your source list so items split correctly before the bullet check runs.

Developer Notes

Implemented with `String.prototype.replace()` using the regular expression `/^\s*[•\-*▪◦‣·]\s?/`, which matches optional leading whitespace, one bullet character from the recognized set, and an optional trailing space.

List Item Bullet Remover Use Cases

Cleaning up bullet markers from a list pasted out of a document or slide deck
Preparing a bulleted list for re-formatting with a different bullet style
Extracting plain text items from a bulleted list for further processing

Common Mistakes

Assuming every possible bullet symbol is recognized; only a fixed set of common characters is matched.
Expecting a hyphen used as real content (like a negative number or a minus sign) at the start of an item to always be preserved; review carefully.
Forgetting to select the right separator mode, which can prevent items from splitting correctly before the bullet check runs.

Tips

Follow up with List Item Bullet Adder if you want a fresh, consistent bullet style applied afterward.
Use List Item Counter Remover instead if your list uses numbers rather than bullet symbols.

List Item Bullet Remover