All tools · Text tools

HTML Entities

Encode or decode HTML special characters.

Free to use, no sign-up required. HTML Entities is one of 198 tools built into Xenition, alongside a chat that can use them for you.

Escapes text so it shows up literally inside HTML, and decodes entity-filled text such as é or — back into normal characters.

How to use HTML Entities

1. Choose Encode or Decode.
2. Paste your text or HTML into the box.
3. Copy the converted output below.

How it works

Encode replaces exactly five characters: & becomes &amp;, < becomes &lt;, > becomes &gt;, a double quote becomes &quot; and an apostrophe becomes &#39;. Everything else, including accented letters and emoji, is left as it is. Decode hands the text to the browser’s own HTML parser, so every named entity and every decimal or hex numeric entity is understood.

Example

<b>Tom & "Jerry"</b> encodes to &lt;b&gt;Tom &amp; &quot;Jerry&quot;&lt;/b&gt;, which a browser displays as the original text instead of making it bold.

Questions about HTML Entities

Why is é not turned into &eacute; when I encode?

Only the five characters that can break HTML markup are escaped. Pages saved as UTF-8 display é and other non-ASCII characters directly, so they do not need entities.

Is it safe to decode HTML that contains a script?

Yes. Decoding happens inside a detached textarea element, which never runs scripts. The tags come out as plain text.

Use it from chat

You do not have to open HTML Entities to use it. Ask Xenition in plain language and it runs the right tool, then carries the answer into whatever you are working on — a document, a spreadsheet, a deck.

Related tools

• URL Encode — Encode or decode URL-safe text.
• Better English — Quick in-widget rewrite of a short snippet so it reads clearer and more natural. For full proofreading or tone rewrites of a document, ask in chat.
• Text ↔ Binary — Convert text to 8-bit binary and back.
• Count Occurrences — Count how many times a word or phrase appears.
• Find & Replace — Replace text or regex matches across a block of text.
• Initials Extractor — Get the initials from a full name.
• Palindrome Checker — Check whether a word or phrase reads the same both ways.
• Programmer Case — Convert to camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, and more.