HTML Entities Encoder/Decoder converts special characters to their HTML entity equivalents (& → &, < → <, > → >, " → ") and back again. Proper entity encoding prevents XSS vulnerabilities, fixes rendering issues when embedding code snippets in HTML, and ensures text content survives HTML parsing without being interpreted as markup.
How it Works
1Paste your text into the input field.
2Choose Encode to convert special characters to HTML entities, or Decode to convert entities back to plain characters.
3The conversion happens instantly in your browser.
4Copy the result for use in your HTML, email template, or CMS.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I encode HTML entities?
Always encode user-supplied content before inserting it into HTML to prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. Also encode when displaying code examples inside <pre> or <code> tags, when writing HTML email templates, and when storing HTML snippets in XML-based formats.
What is the difference between named and numeric entities?
The encoder converts the five characters with special HTML meaning: &, <, >, ", and '. All other characters, including accented letters and emoji, are left as-is since modern HTML documents use UTF-8 encoding and don't need to encode those characters.
Can I use this to safely display code snippets on a web page?
Yes. Encode your code snippet with this tool, then wrap the output in <pre><code>...</code></pre> tags. The angle brackets in HTML/XML tags will display as literal characters rather than being parsed as markup.