HTML entity converter

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In the language of the web, HTML, certain characters are "reserved." Characters like the less-than (<) and greater-than (>) symbols are the building blocks of HTML tags, and using them as plain text can break your code or create security vulnerabilities. Our HTML Entity Converter is the essential tool for solving this problem. It allows you to instantly "encode" text into its safe HTML entity equivalent, and "decode" entities back into readable characters.

This is a must-have utility for web developers, programmers, and content writers who need to display code snippets or special characters on a webpage safely and accurately.

What Are HTML Entities?

An HTML entity is a special string of text that a browser will replace with a specific character. These entities always begin with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;). They exist for three main reasons:

  1. To display reserved characters: If you want to show the text "

    " on your webpage, you can't just type it directly, because the browser would interpret it as a paragraph tag. Instead, you must use its entity representation:

    .

  2. To display characters not on your keyboard: You can use entities to display symbols like the copyright symbol (© → ©), the trademark symbol (™ → ™), or various currency symbols.
  3. To display invisible characters: The most common example is the non-breaking space ( ), which prevents the browser from splitting two words at that space.

The five most critical HTML entities to know are:

  • < for < (less-than)
  • > for > (greater-than)
  • & for & (ampersand)
  • " for " (double quote)
  • ' for ' (single quote/apostrophe)

Practical Uses: Who Needs to Convert HTML Entities?

Encoding and decoding entities is a fundamental task for anyone publishing technical or specialized content on the web.

For Web Developers and Programmers 💻

  • Displaying Code Snippets: This is the number one use case. To show a block of HTML, XML, or JavaScript code in a tutorial or on a blog, you must encode the entire block into HTML entities. This ensures the browser displays the code as readable text instead of trying to execute it.
  • Preventing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks: As a critical security measure, any text submitted by a user that will be displayed back on a page should have its HTML characters encoded. This prevents a malicious user from injecting a harmful