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ATS Resume Sanitizer: before and after

An illustration with sample files; your own files show their own results.

BeforeRésumés the parser misreads

  • Two columns read straight across

  • Contact lost in the header

  • Skill bars and icons

AfterRebuilt so every parser reads it

  • One clean column

  • Contact moved into the body

  • Plain text, nothing lost

Lever Resume Checker: Fix Odd Characters and Encoding Noise

Lever's parser is commonly reported to be sensitive to unusual characters. Fancy bullets, ligatures, icon fonts and decorative symbols can turn into question marks or stray boxes in the parsed fields, and a name or email with a broken character is a problem for the person trying to contact you.

The tool above repairs broken character mappings, folds decorative characters to plain, safe equivalents, keeps the contact block extractable, and rebuilds the résumé as a clean, searchable PDF, DOCX or Markdown file. The audit scores the result against five ATS pipelines, Lever included. It is a local simulation, not a connection to Lever.

ATS Resume Sanitizer

Clean up odd characters and encoding noise so Lever reads your contact block, and export a plain PDF or DOCX.

280/ resumeOpen tool

This is the ATS Resume Sanitizer set up for one case. See everything it does →

ATS Resume Sanitizer

Applicant Tracking Systems read a résumé as one linear text stream, and they fail in predictable ways: columns interleave, ligatures and broken fonts turn into garbage, content in form fields or images is dropped, and headers get truncated. The ATS Resume Sanitizer rebuilds your résumé as a single-column, machine-readable document, entirely in your browser. Your file never leaves your device.

What it does

  • Spatial linearization: an XY-cut engine finds column gutters and block gaps and flattens columns, sidebars and visual tables into one reading order.
  • Glyph & CMap repair: expands ligatures (fi, fl, ffi…), neutralises Private-Use-Area characters from broken CMaps, and folds exotic bullets, dashes and quotes to plain equivalents.
  • Artifact stripping: the output is rebuilt from text only, so images, skill bars, decorative vectors, form fields and annotations are gone by construction.
  • Semantic restructuring: content is sorted into canonical sections (Contact, Summary, Experience, Skills, Education, Certifications…).
  • Dual-target output: a searchable text PDF plus an unstyled DOCX and Markdown, ready for any parser.
  • Headless ATS audit: a built-in mock parser scores machine readability and projects it onto five pipelines: Workday, Taleo, Greenhouse, Lever and iCIMS.

A note on PDF/A

The PDF is a clean, searchable text PDF with ISO core fonts and a classic cross-reference table, which covers everything an ATS relies on. It is deliberately not stamped as PDF/A-1b/2b: true conformance needs colour profiles, XMP metadata and a validating toolchain that a client-side tool cannot guarantee. You get a document that parses correctly, not a badge it cannot verify.

Frequently asked questions

Why do bullets and icons turn into strange characters in a parsed résumé?
A PDF can draw a bullet from a symbol font or an icon font whose characters map to nothing standard when the text is extracted, so the parser sees a box or a question mark. The sanitizer repairs those mappings and replaces decorative glyphs with plain equivalents.
Can encoding problems break my email address or phone number?
Yes, when the contact line uses a special character, a ligature or an icon in place of a label. The audit checks whether the contact block is extractable as plain text and flags it when it is not.
Does the cleaned résumé keep my wording?
Yes. The text is preserved and only characters and layout are normalised. The audit also flags text loss if anything could not be carried over, so you can check before you download.
Is my résumé uploaded anywhere to be checked?
No. The whole check runs in your browser and the file is never uploaded. Previewing and checking need no account; an account is needed only to spend tokens when you download the result.
More questions about Orilami →

ATS Resume Sanitizer at a glance

Key facts about ATS Resume Sanitizer: where it runs, what it costs, what it accepts and produces, and its limits.
Where it runsEntirely in your browser. Files are never uploaded.
Cost280 tokens per resume (about $2.80 at the base rate)
AcceptsPDF
ProducesA rebuilt, machine-readable PDF plus DOCX and Markdown versions, and a conformance audit scored against five parser families.
BatchOne at a time.
Account neededOnly to spend tokens. Browsing and previewing are free.
What it does not doIt fixes how a resume is structured and parsed. It does not write your resume or judge your experience.

Local processing vs. cloud tools

How Orilami compares with the typical online tool that uploads your file to its servers.

Orilami local processing compared with typical cloud tools on file privacy, edit and delete safety, speed, and pricing model.
CriterionOrilami (runs locally)Typical cloud tools
File privacy0 bytes leave your device. Files are processed in your browser's memory.Files are uploaded to external servers, where they may be logged or retained.
Edit & delete safetyThe résumé is rebuilt from clean text, so hidden layers, graphics and encoding noise are not carried over.Your original and the rebuilt copy often sit on their servers for a while after you leave.
Speed & performanceInstant: runs on your device, with no queue and no upload or download wait.Depends on your connection and on server load.
Pricing modelPay per use with tokens. No mandatory monthly subscription.Typically a recurring monthly subscription that adds up.

The cloud column describes upload-based online tools in general. Individual services differ.