HTML Entity Encoder & Decoder
Convert special characters to entities and back — for safely showing code on a page.
About HTML Entity Encoder & Decoder
To display characters like less-than, greater-than or ampersand inside HTML you must write them as entities, otherwise the browser reads them as part of a tag. The same conversion, applied server-side, is the primary defence against script injection.
How to use HTML Entity Encoder & Decoder
- 1
Enter your text or HTML snippet.
- 2
Press encode to convert special characters into entities.
- 3
Choose decode to turn entities back into plain characters.
- 4
Drop the output into your template or document.
Frequently asked questions
Which characters must always be converted?
Ampersand, less-than, greater-than, and both quote types inside attribute values. Printing user input without this conversion leaves you open to XSS.
Does this replace server-side sanitisation?
No. This tool is for manual work and inspection. In a real application, encoding must happen at output time in the template layer — which Blade, for example, does by default.
Should non-Latin characters be encoded?
There is no need. With UTF-8 encoding they display directly, and converting them only inflates file size.