# Slug Generator

Generate clean URL slugs from any text, with built-in Chinese-to-Pinyin conversion. Collapse separators, lowercase, and optional max-length word-aware truncation.

> Canonical page: https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/slug-generator

- **Category:** Text Processing

- **Keywords:** slug generator, url slug, seo url, permalink, pinyin, chinese to pinyin, slugify

## Overview

Generate URL-friendly slugs from any text — with full **Chinese-to-Pinyin** conversion as a first-class feature.

**How it works:**
- Chinese characters are transliterated to Pinyin via `pinyin-pro` (multi-character aware, handles polyphones and common readings). Pick **no tone**, **with tone marks**, or **first-letter initials only**.
- Non-ASCII characters can also be **dropped** (ASCII-only slug) or **kept** (multilingual slug, useful for non-Latin scripts).
- All non-alphanumeric characters are collapsed into your chosen separator (hyphen, underscore, dot, or none).
- Leading/trailing separators are trimmed; consecutive separators are merged.
- Optional **max length** truncates by whole words — a word is never cut in half.

**Good to know:**
- Default mode converts Chinese to tone-less Pinyin and lowercases everything, producing clean Latin slugs like `ni-hao-shi-jie` for 你好世界.
- For an ASCII-only slug from mixed text, use "Drop non-ASCII".
- For multilingual content (Japanese, Korean, Arabic, …) where you want to preserve the original script in the URL, use "Keep as-is".

## Inputs

- **Text** (textarea): Type or paste text to slugify (Chinese is auto-converted to Pinyin)...
- **Chinese handling** (select)
- **Pinyin style** (select)
- **Separator** (select)
- **Case** (select)
- **Max length** (number): 0 = no limit

## When to use

- When creating human-readable, SEO-optimized permalinks for blog posts, articles, or product pages.
- When converting Chinese titles into clean, tone-less Pinyin URLs to avoid broken or percent-encoded characters.
- When cleaning up raw user input or titles containing special characters, spaces, and mixed languages into standardized URL paths.

## How it works

- Input your raw text and choose how to handle Chinese characters, selecting from Pinyin conversion, dropping non-ASCII characters, or keeping them as-is.
- Select your preferred separator (hyphen, underscore, dot, or none) and choose whether to force lowercase or preserve the original casing.
- Set an optional maximum length limit to automatically truncate the slug at a whole-word boundary without cutting words in half.
- The tool processes the text, merges consecutive separators, trims the edges, and outputs a clean, URL-ready slug.

## Use cases

- Generating clean, Pinyin-based URLs for Chinese blog posts to improve search engine indexing.
- Standardizing mixed-language product titles into uniform, lowercase, hyphenated URL paths for e-commerce sites.
- Creating short, abbreviation-style slugs using first-letter Pinyin initials for internal database keys or short links.

## Frequently asked questions

### How does the tool handle Chinese characters?

It uses Pinyin transliteration to convert Chinese characters into tone-less, toned, or initial-only Pinyin, or you can choose to drop or keep them.

### Will the maximum length limit cut my words in half?

No, the truncation logic is word-aware and will only cut the slug at whole-word boundaries.

### Can I generate slugs for non-English languages other than Chinese?

Yes, you can select the 'Keep as-is' option for Chinese handling to preserve other non-ASCII scripts in your slug.

### What separators can I use between words?

You can choose hyphens, underscores, dots, or no separator at all.

### Does the generator clean up consecutive spaces or special characters?

Yes, it automatically collapses all non-alphanumeric characters into a single separator and trims them from the start and end.

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## Samples

- [URL Slug Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/slug): Collection of valid and invalid URL slug examples for testing (lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, optional underscores)
- [Web Image Processing Python Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/web-image-processing-python): Web Python image processing examples using PIL/Pillow including reading, saving, resizing, and format conversion
- [Web Image Processing TypeScript Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/web-image-processing-typescript): Web TypeScript image processing examples including image read/save, scaling, and format conversion
- [macOS Image Processing Objective-C Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/macos-image-processing-objectivec): macOS Objective-C image processing examples including image reading/saving, image scaling, and format conversion

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