HTML Entity Encoder & Decoder

What Are HTML Entities?

HTML entities are character references that let HTML display reserved characters and symbols safely. They begin with an ampersand and end with a semicolon. For example, the less-than sign is written as <, and an ampersand is written as &.

A few characters are reserved in HTML because the browser uses them to build the page. The angle brackets < and > open and close tags, the ampersand & begins every entity, and quotes wrap attribute values. To show those characters as plain text rather than have the browser act on them, you replace each one with its entity. Entities also give you a reliable way to write symbols and Unicode characters that are hard to type, such as © for ©, € for €, or a numeric reference like 😀 for an emoji.

Every entity comes in up to three forms: a named reference such as &, a decimal reference such as &, and a hexadecimal reference such as &. All three render the same character; named entities are the easiest to read, while numeric entities work for any Unicode code point.

Use this page to encode HTML entities, decode HTML entities, see worked conversion examples, review common use cases, check the ampersand entity, or browse the HTML entity reference table.

Encode HTML Entities

HTML encoding converts characters such as &, <, >, quotes, and symbols into entity references. Encoding is useful when text needs to be shown inside markup without being interpreted as markup.

• Named entities: readable values like &, ©, and ♥
• Decimal entities: numeric values like & and ©
• Hexadecimal entities: hex values like & and ©

Start with the HTML entity encoder above, then compare the output against the reference table.

Decode HTML Entities

HTML decoding converts entity references back into readable text. For example, & decodes to &, < decodes to <, and © decodes to ©.

The decoder supports named HTML entities plus decimal and hexadecimal numeric references. This makes it useful for reviewing copied HTML snippets, CMS output, escaped JSON strings, and source text that contains encoded characters.

Decoding is also the fix for entities that show up as literal text on a page. If you see & or < printed on screen instead of the character it represents, the text was usually encoded twice. Paste it into the decoder and run Decode once or twice to recover the original characters.

HTML Entity Examples

These before-and-after examples show how everyday text and symbols look once they are encoded as HTML entities. The left column is what you type; the right column is the encoded output you can paste safely into HTML.

Paste any of these into the encoder above to reproduce the output, then switch to Decode to convert the entities back to their original characters.

Common Use Cases

HTML entity encoding and decoding solves a handful of recurring, real-world problems. Here is when reach for this tool.

Ampersand HTML Entity: &

The ampersand character starts every HTML entity, so a literal ampersand should be encoded as & when it appears in text. The same character can also be written as decimal & or hexadecimal &.

Common examples include brand names, query strings shown as text, and code examples: AT&T displays as AT&T. See the first row of the entity table for the ampersand formats.