HTML entity converter

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About HTML Entity Converter

HTML Entity Converter encodes or decodes HTML entities such as & and —. It is the fastest way to escape user input for safe inclusion in HTML.

How to use it

Paste text and pick encode or decode. The output appears below.

Common use cases

Escaping user input for HTML. Reading entity-encoded source code.

Characters that have meaning inside HTML — the ampersand, the less-than and greater-than signs — must be written as entities like & and < when they are meant to appear as plain text rather than as markup. This converter encodes raw characters into their HTML entity form, or decodes entities back into the literal characters, whichever direction you need.

It is the tool for the quote-cleanup and escaping chores that recur the moment you paste special characters into HTML, or when you inherit entity-filled text and want to see the real characters.

How to Use the HTML Entity Converter

Choose encode (text to entities) or decode (entities to text).
Paste your input.
Copy the converted output.

Practical Use Cases

Escape special characters so text displays literally inside an HTML page or email, decode entity-riddled content back into the characters a reader expects, and prepare safe strings for user-generated content that must not be parsed as markup.

HTML entities — common questions

Why do I need entities at all?

Some characters are special inside HTML. Without escaping them, a browser may interpret them as part of the markup, so writing them as entities displays the intended character instead.

Which characters usually need escaping?

The ampersand, less-than and greater-than signs are the common ones, along with quotes in attribute contexts. The converter handles these standard cases as a normal part of its work.

What is the decode direction for?

When you receive text already full of entities — from a feed, a dataset or generated markup — decoding turns & and < back into the literal & and < symbols you want to read or reuse.