HTML Encoder & Decoder – Escape HTML Entities Safely Online

To show code on a web page, the code has to be disarmed first: a raw < or & in your text is read by the browser as markup, not as content. HTML encoding (escaping) converts the dangerous characters into entities — < becomes <, > becomes >, & becomes &, quotes become " — so text displays exactly as written. This tool encodes and decodes both ways: escape code samples for tutorials, documentation and comments, or decode entity-heavy text copied from a page source back into plain readable characters. It handles the core entities plus numeric forms, and everything runs in your browser.

Quick Answer: Paste text to escape it into HTML entities for safe display, or paste entity-encoded text to decode it back to normal characters.

Free Online Tool

HTML Encoder / Decoder

Show code as text, or turn entities back into characters.

Direction

Input

Output

How to Use the HTML Encoder / Decoder

Choose Encode to escape text, or Decode to restore entity-encoded text.
Paste your content into the input box.
Press Convert and inspect the output.
For decoding, check the result reads naturally with real <, > and & characters where expected.
Copy the result into your page, documentation or codebase.

Key Features

Escapes ampersands, angle brackets, quotes and apostrophes.
Decodes named and numeric entities found in real page source.
One-click conversion both directions with copy support.
Essential for tutorials, code samples and safe comment output.
Local processing — paste sensitive snippets safely.

Best Practices and Tips

Encode code samples before putting them in a CMS editor; many editors mangle raw angle brackets on save.
In HTML attributes delimited by double quotes, encoding quotes matters as much as brackets — this tool covers both.
Decoding text copied from ‘view source’ reveals what visitors actually see, including hidden characters entities were masking.
Never decode and then inject user text back into a page unescaped — that round trip reopens the XSS hole encoding exists to close.
Numeric entities (<) and named ones (<) are equivalent; decoders should handle both, and this one does.
When you copy code out of a tutorial page, it usually arrives already encoded for display. Run it through Decode once before pasting it into your editor, or your page will show the entities themselves instead of running the code, which is the most common cause of the classic example-does-not-work frustration.
Keep encoding in mind when text travels between systems: a title written for an HTML page may pass through feeds, emails and databases that each encode differently. Decoding to plain text at each boundary, then encoding once for the final output format, keeps every hop honest and avoids the layered mess of double-encoded entities.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Double-encoding, producing < which displays as the literal text ‘<‘ instead of ‘<'.
Forgetting that & must be encoded first (or decoded last) for round trips to survive intact.
Assuming encoding is only about tags — ampersands in URLs and text break validation too.
Pasting decoded user content into a template without re-escaping at output time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which characters get encoded?

The five classic ones: & (ampersand) to &, < to <, > to >, double quote to ", and single quote to '. Those five make text safe to place inside HTML content and attribute values.

What is the difference between named and numeric entities?

Named entities use a word — © for ©, < for <. Numeric entities use the character's code point — © (decimal) or © (hex). Browsers understand all forms; decoders, including this one, resolve both back to the character.

Why would I decode entities?

Text harvested from page source, feeds or databases often arrives entity-encoded — reading ‘’’ is no fun when it just means a right single quote. Decoding restores the real characters for editing, quoting or republishing cleanly.

Does encoding make my page secure?

Escaping output is the core defence against injecting markup through user content, and this tool performs exactly that escaping. Full security also depends on context (attributes, scripts, URLs each have rules), but for displaying text as text, entity encoding is the correct and sufficient step.

Will it handle emojis and accents?

Those characters do not need encoding in a UTF-8 page and pass through unchanged in both directions, though the decoder will resolve their numeric entity forms if a source used them.