Util Tools What are HTML entities?
HTML entities are special codes that represent characters which would otherwise be interpreted as markup or
cannot be typed easily. They come in named form (& for &) and numeric form
(& or &). The browser displays the actual character while the
source stays valid. This tool encodes text into entities and decodes entities back to characters.
Why you need to encode
A few characters have structural meaning in HTML: < and > delimit tags,
& begins an entity, and quotes delimit attributes. If you want to display these literally,
or include a character your keyboard cannot produce, you must encode it so the browser shows it as text
rather than treating it as code.
Named vs. numeric entities
& (named) and & (numeric) render the same character. Named entities
are more readable but only exist for a defined set of characters; numeric entities work for any Unicode code
point, which is why this tool can encode emoji and non-Latin characters that have no name. Encode-essential
mode touches only the markup-sensitive characters, while encode-all converts everything non-ASCII.
A note on security
Encoding output before inserting it into a page is a key defence against cross-site scripting (XSS), because it stops user input from being parsed as HTML. However, encoding alone is not a complete security strategy: context matters (HTML, attributes, and JavaScript each need different handling), so treat this tool as one part of safe output handling, not a guarantee.
Last updated: July 2026