📜

HTML Entities Encode / Decode

Encode special characters to HTML entities (<, &, ©...) and decode them back. Reference table included. Runs 100% in your browser.

All tools

Raw text

HTML encoded

Encode all non-ASCII characters (safest) Use named entity when available (e.g. © instead of ©) Use decimal (A) instead of hex (A)

HTML encoding lets special characters (< > &) display as text instead of being parsed as tags. Useful when pasting code/AI output into HTML, or previewing in a blog.

Common entities reference

Char	Named	Numeric	Description
<	<	<	Less than
>	>	>	Greater than
&	&	&	Ampersand
"	"	"	Double quote
'	'	'	Apostrophe
©	©	©	Copyright
®	®	®	Registered
™	™	™	Trademark
€	€	€	Euro
£	£	£	Pound
¥	¥	¥	Yen
°	°	°	Degree
±	±	±	Plus-minus
×	×	×	Multiplication
÷	÷	÷	Division
→	→	→	Right arrow
←	←	←	Left arrow
			Non-breaking space

When you need HTML encoding

Display code/text on a web page: pasting <div> into HTML would render as a real tag — encode to <div> to show it as text.
Embed AI output in a blog: ChatGPT/Claude outputs containing <, > need encoding to render correctly.
URL query strings: & in a URL must be escaped to & so it isn't parsed as a separator.
XSS prevention: encoding user input before injecting it into HTML is the most basic XSS defence.
HTML email: email clients are strict — encoding avoids broken templates from special characters.

Three entity formats

Named: < & © — most readable, but not all characters have a name.
Decimal: < — universal, supported in every browser.
Hex: < — compact for high Unicode (emoji, CJK).

Tips

Toggle "Encode all non-ASCII" for maximum safety — Vietnamese, emoji, CJK all become numeric entities.
By default only the 5 critical chars are encoded (< > & " ') — enough for 95% of use cases.
Auto-decode happens as you paste into the right box — no button click needed.