What counts as a word?

Any run of non-whitespace characters. Existing punctuation attached to a word (like a trailing comma) is treated as part of that word and gets wrapped along with it.

Can the symbol be more than one character?

Yes, any non-empty string works as the symbol, so you could wrap words in "**" for Markdown bold, "[[" and other multi-character markers by running the tool twice with different symbols, or any custom tag.

Does it add spaces between the symbol and the word?

No, the symbol is placed directly against the word on both sides with no added space, matching common conventions like Markdown's *emphasis* syntax.

Word Symbol Wrapper - Wrap Every Word in a Symbol

Overview

Introduction

Wrapping every word in a passage with a symbol, like asterisks for emphasis or brackets for tagging, is fiddly to do by hand across more than a sentence or two.

This tool applies the wrap consistently across your whole input in one pass.

What Is Word Symbol Wrapper?

A tool that finds every word (any run of non-whitespace characters) in your text and places your chosen symbol immediately before and after it.

It runs entirely client-side as part of this site's String Tools collection, so nothing you paste is ever uploaded to a server.

How Word Symbol Wrapper Works

The tool matches every run of non-whitespace characters in the input and replaces each match with the symbol, the original word, and the symbol again, leaving whitespace between words unchanged.

The transformation happens synchronously in JavaScript the moment you type, with no network round trip involved.

When To Use Word Symbol Wrapper

Use it to apply Markdown emphasis (like *word* or **word**) across a whole sentence at once, or to add a custom tag or marker around each word.

It's a fast way to get the answer without opening a code editor, a REPL, or writing a one-off script just to check.

Often used alongside Word Symbol Unwrapper, Letter Symbol Wrapper and Find & Replace Tool.

Features

Advantages

Works with any symbol string, not just a fixed set of characters.
Applies consistently to every word in one pass, however long the input.

Limitations

Treats any run of non-whitespace as one word, so a word with attached punctuation (like "hello,") is wrapped including that punctuation.

Examples

Wrapping with asterisks

Input

hello world

Output

*hello* *world*

Each word is wrapped on both sides with the default "*" symbol.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Use "**" as the symbol for Markdown bold, or "*" for Markdown italics/emphasis.
Trim stray punctuation from the input first if you want the symbol placed only around the letters, not the attached punctuation.

Developer Notes

Word matching and wrapping is done in a single input.replace(/\S+/g, ...) pass, which is why any run of non-whitespace, including attached punctuation, is treated as one word rather than splitting on punctuation.

Word Symbol Wrapper Use Cases

Applying Markdown emphasis or bold formatting across a sentence
Tagging every word in a list with a custom marker
Building a simple decorated or stylized text effect

Common Mistakes

Expecting punctuation attached to a word to be excluded from the wrap; it's treated as part of the word.
Leaving the symbol field empty, which the tool rejects since there'd be nothing to wrap with.

Tips

Use the Word Symbol Unwrapper tool afterward if you need to reverse the wrap and get your original text back.

Word Symbol Wrapper