I wrote my offers hashtag with a stretched letter because it looks nicer; why doesn't it show up with posts using the same hashtag without the stretch?
Because the stretch is not just a look; it is a real character in the text, the kashida or tatweel character, U+0640. A hashtag containing it is different text from the plain hashtag people type and search for, so platforms will usually treat it as a separate tag. Remove the tatweel from the caption before posting: the tool deletes that one character and leaves the underscore and letters as they are.
What the system sees
You see «#عروض_الصيف» with a stretched ain, and a reader reads the same word. The system sees a string of characters: the hash, then ain, then the tatweel, then ra, and so on. The hashtag other people type is a different string with no tatweel in it. Platforms group posts by hashtag text, and the two texts differ, so they struggle to meet on one page.
We cannot vouch for how each platform matches hashtags, and that can change. Testing it is easy, though: search the platform for the plain hashtag, then for the stretched one, and compare. Either way, the plain hashtag is what people type when they search.
An example from the tool
The hashtag «#عروض_الصيف» written with one tatweel after the ain. After removal it came out as the plain «#عروض_الصيف»: one tatweel found, one removed, one word affected.
A bigger example, a whole caption: «تخفيضات», then the same hashtag with a stretch after the ain, then «#جديد_العيد» with two tatweels after the jeem. The result: 3 tatweel characters removed in 2 words, while the underscores, the hash signs and the word «تخفيضات» stayed exactly as they were. The tool counts words by spaces, so a whole hashtag counts as one word.
Why the tool leaves the underscore alone
The underscore «_» is a completely different character from the tatweel, even though both are horizontal lines. The underscore joins the words of a hashtag, and deleting it would split the tag in two. The tatweel only stretches the join inside an Arabic word. The tool deletes one character, U+0640, and nothing else.
Steps
- Write the caption however you like, stretches included.
- Before posting, paste it into the Arabic tatweel remover with «Remove every tatweel».
- If you want to keep the stretch in the body of the caption, paste only the hashtags into the tool and put the clean versions back in their place.
- Copy the result and post.
A saved hashtag list
If you keep a saved list of hashtags for every post, clean it once: paste it into the tool one hashtag per line and remove the tatweel. You may find two hashtags that looked different are now identical, because the stretch was the only difference. Run the list through the Duplicate-line remover then, so each hashtag appears once.
Common questions
Does removing the stretch change the hashtag's meaning?
No. The tatweel is decorative, with no sound and no meaning, and the word reads the same without it.
What about vowel marks in a hashtag?
This tool does not remove diacritics. Vowel marks in a hashtag are extra characters too; strip them with the diacritic remover.