import re


def normalize(text: str):
    """
    Strips out formatting, line breaks, and repeated spaces to normalize
    the string for comparison.  This ensures minor formatting changes
    are not tagged as meaningful changes
    """
    s = text.lower()
    s = s.replace("\n", " ")
    s = re.sub(r'[`*\'"]', "", s)
    s = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", s)
    return s