HTML Entity Encode & Decode
Convert special characters to HTML entities or decode them back. Runs entirely in your browser.
What Are HTML Entities and Why Are They Important for Web Security?
HTML entities are special sequences that represent characters which have reserved meaning in HTML markup. When you display user-generated content on a web page, characters like <, >, &, and " must be converted to their entity equivalents to prevent the browser from interpreting them as HTML tags — which would create Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.
Complete Reference Table of Common HTML Entities
<→<— Less-than sign (opens HTML tags)>→>— Greater-than sign (closes HTML tags)&→&— Ampersand (starts entity sequences)"→"— Double quote (delimits HTML attribute values)'→'— Single quote / apostrophe Non-breaking space©? © — Copyright symbol®? ® — Registered trademark—? — — Em dash
When to Use HTML Entity Encoding in Your Projects
- Displaying user input safely on web pages — Encode all user-submitted text before rendering it in HTML to prevent XSS attacks
- Embedding code snippets in HTML documents — Show
<div>as text instead of the browser rendering it as an element - Email templates with special characters — Many email clients require entities for proper rendering
- CMS and blog content — Ensure special characters display correctly across different platforms
- Fixing broken HTML that shows raw entities — Decode
&back to&when entities have been double-encoded
HTML Entity Encoding vs URL Encoding — Which One Should You Use?
HTML entity encoding is for content displayed inside HTML pages. URL encoding (percent-encoding) is for data transmitted in URLs and query strings. Using the wrong encoding type can lead to security vulnerabilities or broken data. Always encode for the context where the data will be used.
Frequently Asked Questions
You should encode HTML entities whenever you display user-generated content or any text containing special characters (<, >, &, quotes) inside HTML. This prevents browsers from interpreting the text as markup and protects against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
The encoder converts characters that have special meaning in HTML — ampersands (&), angle brackets (< >), double quotes ("), and single quotes ('). Regular letters, numbers, and most punctuation pass through unchanged since they are safe in HTML context.
Yes. If you see text like & or < in your HTML output, it means the entities were encoded twice. Paste the broken text into the decoder to convert it back one level. You may need to decode multiple times if the text was encoded more than twice.
No. All encoding and decoding runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device — no data is transmitted to any server. This makes it safe for processing HTML containing sensitive information or proprietary content.
Named entities use human-readable labels like & for & and < for <. Numeric entities use Unicode code points like & (decimal) or & (hexadecimal). Both produce the same result in browsers. Named entities are easier to read in source code; numeric entities cover the full Unicode range.