Characters like <, >, and & have special meaning in HTML, so displaying them literally on a page requires converting them into HTML entities first — otherwise a browser tries to interpret them as markup rather than showing the character itself.
This tool converts special characters into their entity equivalents, or reverses the process, decoding entities back into the plain characters they represent.
It's a common step when embedding user-generated text into HTML safely, or when troubleshooting why a page is displaying literal entity codes instead of the intended symbols.
Because everything runs locally in your browser, results appear instantly and nothing you type or upload is ever sent to a server.
Bookmark this page if you expect to use this tool regularly — it loads fast and behaves the same way every time, with no account needed.
This kind of task shows up constantly in everyday writing, coding, design, and admin work, which is exactly why a dedicated, focused tool saves so much back-and-forth.
A tool that does one job well, without a cluttered interface or unrelated features competing for attention, tends to be faster to use than a heavier all-in-one app.
If you find yourself needing this conversion or calculation often, keeping this page open in a tab is usually faster than digging through a bigger software suite's menus.
Because there's no sign-up or installation step, you can jump straight from search result to working tool in a couple of seconds.
Because the whole process happens client-side, there's no waiting on a slow server response or worrying about a service outage affecting your work.
For recurring tasks, having a single dependable tool beats re-deriving the same calculation or formatting by hand every time.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I just type < and > directly in HTML?
Browsers interpret those characters as the start of markup tags, so displaying them as literal text requires the escaped entity form instead.
Does this handle emoji and accented characters too?
This tool focuses on the core HTML-reserved characters; most accented characters and emoji display fine in HTML without needing entity encoding.