HTML Entity Converter
Convert special characters to HTML entities and decode entities back to characters.
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🔒 Privacy Notice: We don't store any of your data. All processing happens locally in your browser.
Plain Text
HTML Entities
Output will appear here...
Common HTML Entities
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How to Use the HTML Entity Converter
Our free HTML entity converter helps developers safely encode and decode special characters for web development. Whether you're sanitizing user input, displaying code snippets, or debugging HTML rendering issues, this tool provides instant bidirectional conversion between plain text and HTML entities.
To encode text to HTML entities, enter your text in the top input area. The tool automatically converts special characters like <, >, &, and quotes to their entity equivalents (<, >, &, etc.). You can choose between named entities (human-readable like ©) or numeric entities (universal like ©) using the format toggle.
To decode HTML entities back to plain text, enter entity codes in the input. The tool recognizes both named entities ( ) and numeric entities in decimal (&) or hexadecimal (&) format. This is useful when you receive encoded data from an API or need to reverse entity encoding for editing.
The converter handles all common HTML entities including quotes, apostrophes, copyright symbols, math operators, currency signs, and accented characters. It also shows a character count for both input and output, helping you track string length changes — important when entity encoding can significantly increase text size.
All conversions happen instantly in your browser with no server processing. Copy results with one click or use keyboard shortcuts for rapid workflow integration. Perfect for preventing XSS vulnerabilities, displaying user content safely, showing code examples in documentation, or working with XML and RSS feeds.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are HTML entities?
HTML entities are special codes that represent characters that have meaning in HTML syntax or can't be typed easily. For example, < represents <, > represents >, and & represents &. They prevent the browser from interpreting these characters as HTML code. Entities can be named (&) or numeric (& or &).
When should I use HTML entity encoding?
Use HTML entity encoding when displaying user-generated content to prevent XSS attacks, when you need to show HTML code as text, when displaying special characters that might not render correctly, or when working with XML/RSS feeds. It ensures special characters display correctly without breaking your HTML structure.
What's the difference between named and numeric entities?
Named entities like & are human-readable and limited to a predefined set. Numeric entities like & (decimal) or & (hex) can represent any Unicode character. Named entities are easier to remember but don't cover all characters. Numeric entities are more versatile but less readable in source code.
Does this tool support all Unicode characters?
Yes! The tool can encode any Unicode character to its numeric HTML entity representation. While not all characters have named entities, every character can be represented as a decimal (&#...) or hexadecimal (&#x...) numeric entity.
Is my text data stored?
No. All conversion happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. No data is sent to any server. The tool is completely private and works offline.