HTML Entities

Encode the five markup characters, or decode the entities you paste. Nothing is sent to a server.

Non-ASCII as numeric

Text

Source

Entities

Result

Learn more about HTML entities

What is this tool?

An HTML character reference stands in for a character that would otherwise be markup or awkward to type. Encoding here always rewrites & < > " and ' as & < > " and '.

Decoding reads those names, a short list of other common names, and numeric references in decimal (é) or hex (é). A name this page does not know is left as it was written. The semicolon is required.

Typical use cases

Putting a user string into HTML without letting < start a tag.
Reading text that arrived already escaped from a CMS or a mail.
Writing a non-ASCII character as a numeric reference.

How to use it

Paste into Text or into Entities. The side you edit is the source.
Turn on Non-ASCII as numeric when characters above U+007E should become &#...; references.
Copy the other side. The five markup characters are always encoded, whether or not that switch is on.

The text stays in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Before / after examples

The five markup characters

Before

a < b & c

After

a &lt; b &amp; c

A numeric reference

Before

&#233;

After

é

Common mistakes

&foo; stays &foo; because that name is not in the list this page decodes. The HTML specification has a much longer catalog. Use a numeric reference when the name is missing here.

A reference without a semicolon is not decoded. &#233 stays text. Names are case-sensitive: < is decoded, and so are the uppercase aliases &LT; &GT; &AMP; and &QUOT;.

Encoding text that already contains < escapes the ampersand, so the result is &lt;. Decode first if that was not what you wanted.

Good to know

Besides the five markup characters, decoding knows nbsp, copy, reg, trade, euro, pound, yen, cent, sect, para, middot, bull, hellip, ndash, mdash, the curly quotes, laquo, raquo, times, divide, deg, plusmn, micro, not and shy.

Numeric references that land on a surrogate code point, or past U+10FFFF, are left unchanged. The page does not parse tags: it only rewrites character references.

Each side is limited to 100,000 characters. The share link stores the source side and the numeric switch. The other side is computed again when the link is opened.

Did you know?

' is the XML name for an apostrophe, and HTML5 defines it too. The HTML 4.01 entity list did not include it. A numeric ' has been safe for longer.

  is U+00A0, the no-break space. It looks like a space and it counts as a different character, which is why a trimmed line can still look padded.

Frequently asked questions

Does the text leave my browser?: No. Encoding runs on your machine. A share link puts the source text in the URL fragment: that fragment is not sent with the HTTP request, but anyone who has the link can read it.
Does this decode every HTML entity?: No. It decodes the names listed on this page, plus decimal and hexadecimal numeric references. Anything else is copied through unchanged.
Will a raw <script> tag run?: No. The text is not inserted as HTML. Encoding turns < into <, and decoding only replaces character references.