HTML Entity Encoder / Decoder
Runs on your device. Nothing is sent.Nothing is ever uploaded - all conversion happens on your device.
Type or paste something above to see the result.
Encode text to HTML entities or decode entities back to text, entirely in your browser.
HTML entities let you safely include characters that would otherwise be interpreted as markup (like < and &), or that might not display correctly everywhere, inside an HTML document. This tool converts text to entities and back, using the standard named entities where one exists and falling back to numeric references otherwise - all locally in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between named, decimal, and hex entities?
They're three ways to write the same character. Named entities like &copy; are the most readable but only exist for a few hundred common characters. Decimal (&#169;) and hex (&#xa9;) numeric entities work for any Unicode character by its code point, and are equivalent to each other - just different bases.
Do I need to escape every character, or just a few?
For safety, only & < > " ' actually need escaping - those are the characters HTML gives special meaning to. Escaping everything else (accented letters, symbols, emoji) is optional and mostly useful when you specifically need plain-ASCII output, e.g. for an older system that mishandles non-ASCII text.
Will decoding ever corrupt text that isn't actually an entity?
No - an ampersand that isn't part of a recognized entity pattern (like a bare "AT&T") is left exactly as it is, and an unrecognized entity name is left untouched too rather than guessed at or removed.