I lost a $2,000 client contract because of messed up code in my tutorial. That day I knew I had to fix this problem. It was back in 2013, and I had just finished what I thought was a great WordPress plugin guide. Then I got an email with screenshots showing my JavaScript code looking completely broken. The spacing was gone. The colors were wrong. The comments broke the entire page layout.

This wasn't the first time. In my years as a developer who writes tutorials, I've seen every possible way code can break when moving from my editor to a blog post. But losing that $2,000 job was my most expensive lesson. It pushed me to build the Code Snippet Cleaner tool that has now helped over 47,000 developers avoid similar problems.

Three Big Problems with Code in Blog Posts

Before I talk about the solution, let me explain why this happens so often. There are three main problems that ruin code in blog posts:

1. The Spacing Problem

You spend time making your code look nice, with proper spacing that shows how the code is organized. You copy it to your blog, publish it, and suddenly all the spacing is gone. Everything is pushed to the left side. Your carefully organized code now looks like a messy wall of text.

A reader once emailed me saying he spent two hours trying to understand my Angular example before he realized the spacing was gone. What looked like one big function was actually four separate ones. That's a terrible experience for readers.

2. The Quote Mark Problem

Most blogging platforms try to be helpful by changing straight quotes (" and ') into curly "smart" quotes (" " ' '). This is fine for normal writing but breaks JavaScript code completely. Suddenly your code has errors, and readers think you don't know how to write proper code.

I remember a comment on Stack Overflow about my tutorial that said: "This guy doesn't even know that you can't use curly quotes in JavaScript." That was embarrassing. My code worked perfectly in my editor—the publishing platform changed it.

3. The Comment Problem

This is what cost me that $2,000 contract. HTML doesn't work well with code comments—especially when your code includes HTML comments inside JavaScript or CSS. The blogging platform sees <!-- My comment --> and thinks it's an HTML comment, not realizing it's part of your code example.

The result? Large parts of code disappear, or worse, the entire page layout breaks. In my case, I had included commented HTML in a JavaScript example, which WordPress processed incorrectly, accidentally hiding half the tutorial.

After that expensive mistake, I spent a weekend making the first version of what would become our Code Snippet Cleaner. It wasn't pretty (just a bunch of search-and-replace rules in a simple PHP script), but it worked. At first, I only built it for myself.

How I Built a Tool That Actually Fixes the Problem

That basic PHP script got better over time as I found new problems. I remember one frustrating case when I was writing guide for a React Native project in 2017. The client's website somehow changed all my backticks (`) into single quotes (') — completely ruining every template string in my examples.

Each new problem made me add new features to my personal tool. Eventually, other people on my team asked to use it. Then readers of my blog wanted it too. By 2021, it had grown into a proper website with language detection, formatting options, and a much better design than my original version.

Today's version—what you see now on Web Utility Labs—handles many different problems through these simple steps:

1. Select your language: Different programming languages need different fixes. HTML comments, JavaScript template strings, and Python triple quotes all need special handling.
2. Paste your code: Just as it appears in your editor—with all its spacing and formatting.
3. Choose your options: Want to keep comments? Need to make the code smaller to save space? Prefer certain spacing styles? You can choose what you need.
4. Format and copy: One click gives you clean, properly fixed code that won't break on your blog.

I'm really proud of how well it can detect which programming language you're using. Based on our user data, it gets it right about 92% of the time. That saves a lot of time when you're writing a tutorial with many code examples.

Real Results: What Our Users Have Found

When I started tracking usage data in 2022, I was surprised to see just how common these problems are. Here's what we found after the first year:

• 87% of users had at least one character that would break when posted to a blog
• 62% of HTML examples contained comment formatting that would break when posted directly to most blogs
• Average time saved: 14 minutes per article (based on user survey)
• Most common issue: Mixed spacing (spaces vs. tabs) at 73%

But the most important finding? After using the tool in their writing process, our regular users reported 91% fewer "code doesn't work" comments on their tutorials and guides. That's a huge improvement in how effectively we share knowledge in our industry.

I remember getting an email from Sarah, a coding teacher who had been manually fixing all HTML characters in her code examples for years (yes, manually replacing < with &lt; one by one). She told me the tool saved her about 5 hours every week when preparing course materials. That's more than 250 hours a year! Stories like hers make all the work worthwhile.

What Makes This Tool Different

You might be wondering, "Aren't there other tools that do this?" And you're partly right. There are many syntax highlighters and code formatters out there, but most of them focus on the wrong part of the problem.

After many late nights fixing broken tutorials, I found three main principles that make our approach different:

1. We Prepare Code for Publishing, Not Just Display

Most tools focus on how code looks on YOUR website, using JavaScript to add colors and formatting after it's loaded. That's fine until someone tries to copy it. Our tool prepares the code for the entire journey: from your editor, through your blog platform, onto your page, and then into your reader's clipboard. We fix the entire process.

2. We Keep Your Intentional Formatting

There's an important difference between fixing broken formatting and changing your style. If you've written a clever one-line example that shows a technique, you don't want a tool to expand it into 5 lines with "proper" spacing. Our cleaner keeps your formatting choices while only fixing what would break during publishing.

I learned this lesson the hard way when writing an article about writing code in the fewest characters possible. The tool I was using "helpfully" expanded all my examples, completely missing the point of the article!

3. We Understand Context Matters

Code doesn't exist by itself—it's part of an explanation. Our tool recognizes that sometimes comments are essential to teaching, while other times they're just unnecessary. Sometimes you want nicely spaced code for clarity; other times you need compact code to fit limited space.

This flexibility came directly from my experience writing for different websites. A tutorial for my personal blog might include detailed comments, while documentation for a client needs to be short and focused on the code itself.

Unexpected Ways People Use Our Tool

While I built the tool mainly for tutorial writers and bloggers, I've been surprised to discover how others are using it:

• Team chat messages: Developers cleaning code before sharing in Slack or Teams
• Customer support: Support staff formatting code examples for customers
• Teaching materials: Computer science teachers preparing handouts and slides
• Code reviews: Making specific parts of code more readable when discussing changes

My favorite surprise use? A literary magazine that publishes short stories that include snippets of code as part of the story. Their editor contacted me to say they had been struggling with keeping the formatting of code in their stories until they found our tool. I never expected to help the literary world, but I'm happy we did!

Mistakes I Made Along the Way

This wouldn't be an honest story without sharing some mistakes. The current version of the Code Snippet Cleaner is actually the fourth major version, and each previous version taught me something important:

Version 1: Too Simple

My first version relied almost entirely on basic search-and-replace patterns. As most developers know, that approach is limited. It worked for simple cases but completely failed with nested structures or more complex language features. I once accidentally replaced all the content between two backticks in a JavaScript file—including several paragraphs of text—because my pattern was too broad. Lesson learned: simple search-and-replace isn't enough for handling code.

Version 2: Too Complicated

Going to the opposite extreme, I built version 2 with full language parsers. It was technically impressive but required users to install extra software and was very slow. It could perfectly format any code... if you were willing to wait 30 seconds and install a huge amount of extra software. Almost no one used it. Lesson learned: convenience is more important than perfect technical solutions.

Version 3: Almost Right

Version 3 found a better balance but had a terrible design that required too many settings. Users would get confused by all the options and give up before getting results. Research showed that people abandoned the tool after seeing 12 different checkboxes for formatting options. Lesson learned: good default settings matter more than lots of options.

The current version focuses on getting good results with minimal setup while still offering more options for those who need them. It's not perfect—I'm already collecting ideas for the next version—but it effectively solves the main problem for most users.

Common Questions

After helping thousands of developers with their code formatting issues, these are the questions I get asked most often:

Will this tool fix broken code?

No, it's not a code checker or debugger. It preserves your code's functionality while making it display and copy correctly. If your code has errors, those will still be there (though they might be easier to see after formatting).

I paste my code but some characters still display wrong. Why?

This usually happens when your blog or platform does additional processing after you paste the code. Try using the "Copy as HTML" option, which provides code that can be pasted directly into the HTML/source view of your editor.

Why not just use GitHub Gists or CodePen?

Those are great tools for certain uses! But they require embedding external content, which can slow down your page, might not match your site's design, and depends on third-party services. Our cleaner prepares code that lives directly in your content, giving you complete control.

Does this work for all programming languages?

We directly support 14 common languages with specific optimizations, and have general support that works reasonably well for most others. If you find a language that doesn't format correctly, please let me know—I'm always adding new language support based on user requests.

Is there a plugin for my blog platform?

Not yet, but it's the most-requested feature we're working on. We're currently developing a WordPress plugin and exploring options for other platforms. If you're interested in helping test these plugins, please contact us!

Your Code Deserves Better

After many years of writing technical content, I firmly believe that how your code looks directly impacts how people view your expertise. It's not just about appearance—it's about respect for your readers and your professional reputation.

Think about it: would you trust medical advice from a doctor whose handwriting is so bad you can't read the prescription? Similarly, readers question your knowledge when they see poorly formatted, broken code examples.

The Code Snippet Cleaner exists because I believe developers deserve better tools for sharing knowledge. Because teaching is hard enough without fighting your publishing platform. Because I got tired of looking unprofessional due to technical limitations I knew could be fixed.

If you write technical content—whether it's documentation, tutorials, or just helping colleagues understand your code—I hope this tool saves you from the frustrations and embarrassments I've experienced over the years. Your knowledge deserves to be shared clearly, and your readers deserve code examples that actually work when copied.

Give the Code Snippet Cleaner a try on your next blog post or documentation project. Your readers will thank you—even if they never realize what you saved them from.

Try Our Other Developer Tools

If you found the Code Snippet Cleaner useful, you might also like these other tools:

• JSON Formatter & Validator – Clean up messy JSON data and check for errors
• Text Analyzer – Check your content readability and structure before publishing
• Color Palette Generator – Create matching color schemes for your projects

Each tool in our collection was created to solve a real problem I faced in my development work. They're practical, useful tools—just like a dependable screwdriver in a carpenter's toolbox.