Encode special characters to HTML entities or decode HTML entities back to text
HTML entities are special sequences of characters used to represent reserved characters in HTML. Characters like <, >, and & have special meaning in HTML and must be encoded to display correctly in web pages.
Encoding HTML entities prevents XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) attacks, ensures proper rendering of special characters in browsers, and maintains the integrity of HTML documents when displaying user-generated content.
Named entities use readable names (e.g., © for the copyright symbol), while numeric entities use character codes (e.g., ©). Both produce the same result but named entities are easier to read and maintain.
HTML entity encoding is essential for embedding code snippets in web pages, sanitizing user input, generating email templates, creating XML/RSS feeds, and working with CMS content editors.