HTML Entity Encode / Decode
Convert special characters to HTML entities and back. Supports named, numeric, and full encoding modes — all processed locally in your browser.
Output will appear here…
What are HTML entities?
HTML entities are special text codes that represent characters that have a reserved meaning in HTML, or characters that are difficult to type. For example, & (ampersand) must be written as & in HTML source to avoid being misinterpreted as the start of an entity.
Named vs numeric entities
- Named entities — human-readable shorthand, e.g.
&,©,€. Not all characters have named forms. - Numeric decimal — works for any Unicode character, e.g.
©for ©. - Numeric hex — same as decimal but base-16, e.g.
©for ©.
The 5 essential HTML characters to escape
Always escape these characters when inserting user-controlled text into HTML to prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks:
&→&<→<>→>"→"'→'
When should you encode HTML entities?
- Inserting user-generated content into HTML to prevent XSS.
- Displaying source code inside
<pre>or<code>blocks. - Embedding special characters (©, ™, €) in HTML templates for maximum compatibility.
- Creating email templates where special characters may be mangled by email clients.