HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder

HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder Online

Escape special characters into HTML entities or decode entity-encoded strings back to plain text with this free online tool. Characters like <, >, &, and quotes break markup or get swallowed by browsers unless they are properly escaped — this encoder converts them to named (<), decimal (<), or hexadecimal (<) entities in one click.

It is essential for displaying code snippets inside HTML, cleaning up scraped content full of & and ", preparing text for XML/RSS feeds, and understanding what an encoded string actually says. Encoding untrusted text before rendering is also a fundamental defense against cross-site scripting (XSS).

How to Encode or Decode HTML Entities

Paste your text

Enter raw text with special characters, or an entity-encoded string you want to read.
Choose encode or decode

Encode converts special characters to entities; decode converts entities back to readable characters.
Pick the entity style

Choose named entities (©), decimal (©), or hex (©) depending on your target format.
Copy the result

One click copies the converted string, ready for your HTML, XML, or template.

Features of the HTML Entity Converter

Named, decimal, and hex entities

Output in whichever entity notation your format requires — HTML, XML, or legacy systems.
Full entity table support

Handles the complete set of named entities, from & and < to typographic symbols like — and ….
Two-way conversion

Decode messy double-encoded strings (&amp;) step by step to recover the original text.
Unicode-safe

Emoji, accented characters, and non-Latin scripts encode to correct numeric references.
Client-side processing

Nothing you paste is uploaded — safe for user data and production content.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are HTML entities?

HTML entities are escape sequences that represent reserved or special characters in markup — for example < renders as < and & renders as &. They prevent browsers from interpreting content as HTML tags.

Which characters must always be escaped in HTML?

At minimum: < (<), > (>), and & (&) in content, plus " (") and ' (') inside attribute values. Escaping these is also the first line of defense against XSS.

Why does my page show & instead of &?

The text was encoded twice. Paste it into the decoder — one pass turns & into &, a second pass yields the plain &. Then fix the pipeline stage that double-encodes.

Should I use named or numeric entities?

Named entities (©) are more readable in HTML. Numeric entities (© or ©) work everywhere, including XML formats where most named entities are undefined.

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HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder