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HTML Decode

Easily convert HTML entities back into readable text.

HTML Encoded Input

Decoded Text Output

Why Use This Tool? ✅

Fast & Accurate

Correctly decodes named and numeric HTML entities into their original characters.

Perfect for Developers

An essential tool for cleaning up HTML source code or processing data from web APIs.

User-Friendly Interface

A simple, clean two-panel layout makes decoding HTML effortless for everyone.

Great for Content Creators

Easily clean up text copied from web pages that contains unwanted HTML entities.

From Code to Content: Understanding HTML Entities 🔡

In HTML, certain characters are reserved for special use. For example, the less-than sign (<) and greater-than sign (>) are used to define HTML tags. If you want to display these characters as plain text on a webpage, you must use their "entity" representation. Decoding is the process of converting these entities back into the characters they represent.

What are HTML Entities?

An HTML entity is a piece of text ("a string") that begins with an ampersand (&) and ends with a semicolon (;). They are used to display reserved characters or characters that are not easily typed on a standard keyboard.

There are two main types:

  • Named Entities: These use a memorable name. For example, < for the less-than sign, & for the ampersand, and © for the copyright symbol.
  • Numeric Entities: These use the character's number from the character set (usually Unicode). For example, the less-than sign can also be written as <.

Why is Decoding Necessary?

  • Data Processing: When you fetch data from a web API or scrape a webpage, the text often comes with its HTML entities intact. To process or display this text correctly in a non-HTML context, you need to decode it first.
  • Cleaning Up Content: If you copy text from a website's source code, you might inadvertently copy the entities. This tool allows you to quickly clean it up and get the plain text version.
  • Debugging: Developers can use this tool to see the "real" content hidden behind HTML entities when debugging their code.

This converter leverages the browser's own powerful HTML parser to provide a fast, reliable, and comprehensive way to decode any HTML-encoded string.