HTML Entity Encoder & Decoder
What are HTML Entities?
HTML entities are special strings that represent characters that might otherwise be interpreted as HTML code. They begin with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;), with either a name or a number in between that represents a character.
For example, the ampersand character itself is represented by the entity &, the less-than symbol is represented by <, and so on.
Common HTML Entities
| Character | Entity Name | Entity Number | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| & | & | & | Ampersand |
| < | < | < | Less than |
| > | > | > | Greater than |
| " | " | " | Double quote |
| ' | ' | ' | Single quote |
Why Use HTML Entities?
HTML entities serve several important purposes:
- Special Character Display: To properly display characters that are reserved in HTML (like <, >, &, etc.).
- Browser Compatibility: To ensure characters display correctly across different browsers and operating systems.
- Security: To prevent potential cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by encoding user input before displaying it on a webpage.
- Unicode Support: To represent characters that might not be directly available in the character encoding of an HTML document.
How to Use This Tool
- Select either "Encode" or "Decode" mode.
- Enter the regular text (for encoding) or text with HTML entities (for decoding) into the top input field.
- The result will appear automatically in the bottom output field.
- Use the swap button to switch the input and output, automatically changing the mode.
- Click the copy icon next to the output label to copy the result.
Use Cases
HTML entity encoding is useful in many scenarios:
- Web Development: When you need to display HTML code samples on a webpage.
- Content Management: When processing user-submitted content to ensure it displays correctly and safely.
- Email Templates: When creating HTML email templates where special characters need to be properly encoded.
- Data Processing: When parsing or generating HTML content programmatically.