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pythonpython-3.xunicodeascii

How to convert fancy/artistic unicode text to ASCII?

I have a unicode string like "𝖙𝖍𝖚𝖌 𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊" and would like to convert it to the ASCII form "thug life".

I know I can achieve this in Python by

import unidecode
print(unidecode.unidecode('𝖙𝖍𝖚𝖌 𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊'))
// thug life

However, this would asciify also other unicode characters (such as Chinese/Japanese characters, emojis, accented characters, etc.), which I want to preserve.

Is there a way to detect these type of "artistic" unicode characters?

Some more examples:

𝓽𝓱𝓾𝓰 𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓮

𝓉𝒽𝓊𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒

𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕘 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖

ｔｈｕｇ ｌｉｆｅ

Thanks for your help!

Solution 
  • import unicodedata
strings = [
  '𝖙𝖍𝖚𝖌 𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊',
  '𝓽𝓱𝓾𝓰 𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓮',
  '𝓉𝒽𝓊𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒',
  '𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕘 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖',
  'ｔｈｕｇ ｌｉｆｅ']
for x in strings:
  print(unicodedata.normalize( 'NFKC', x), x)

    Output: .\62803325.py

    thug life 𝖙𝖍𝖚𝖌 𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊
thug life 𝓽𝓱𝓾𝓰 𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓮
thug life 𝓉𝒽𝓊𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒
thug life 𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕘 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖
thug life ｔｈｕｇ ｌｉｆｅ

    Resources: