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HTML Encoder & Decoder

This tool helps you encode text to HTML entities and decode HTML entities back to plain text. It's useful when you need to safely display HTML content or decode HTML entities in your text.

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What is HTML Encoding?

HTML encoding converts special characters to their HTML entity equivalents. This is useful when you need to display HTML content as text without the browser rendering it as HTML.

For example:

  • < becomes &lt;
  • > becomes &gt;
  • & becomes &amp;
  • " becomes &quot;
  • ' becomes &#39;

Common use cases include:

  • Displaying code snippets on websites
  • Preventing XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) attacks
  • Ensuring HTML is displayed as text rather than rendered by the browser
  • Processing user input that may contain HTML for safe display

About HTML Encoder/Decoder

HTML Encoder/Decoder is a useful tool that helps you encode or decode HTML entities in text, converting special characters to their HTML entity equivalents

Escape reserved HTML characters into entities and decode entity references back into readable text.

Key features

  • Conversion purpose Escape reserved HTML characters into entities and decode entity references back into readable text.
  • Accepted input Paste text, markup fragments, named entities such as &amp;amp;, or numeric character references.
  • Conversion controls Choose encode or decode and select any available handling for named, decimal, hexadecimal, or non-ASCII characters.
  • Converted result Encoding protects literal <, >, &, quotation marks, and related characters in an HTML text context; decoding restores their characters.

How to use HTML Encoder/Decoder

Follow this workflow to work with HTML entities safely and accurately.

  1. Provide the source value Paste text, markup fragments, named entities such as &amp;amp;, or numeric character references.
  2. Set the conversion direction Choose encode or decode and select any available handling for named, decimal, hexadecimal, or non-ASCII characters.
  3. Convert the data Start the conversion and watch for validation errors that show the supplied HTML entities cannot be interpreted in the selected direction.
  4. Validate the result Encoding protects literal <, >, &, quotation marks, and related characters in an HTML text context; decoding restores their characters.

Usage tips

  • Entity encoding is context-dependent; HTML text, attributes, URLs, CSS, and JavaScript require different escaping rules.
  • Do not decode untrusted content and then insert it with innerHTML without sanitization.
  • Encode once at the output boundary to avoid double-encoded values such as &amp;amp;amp;.

Frequently asked questions

Escape reserved HTML characters into entities and decode entity references back into readable text.
Paste text, markup fragments, named entities such as &amp;amp;, or numeric character references.
Choose encode or decode and select any available handling for named, decimal, hexadecimal, or non-ASCII characters.
Escaping prevents markup interpretation in the correct context but is not a complete XSS defense; validate and sanitize untrusted HTML as well.