From HTML entities to text

Convert HTML entity references back into their literal Unicode characters — the inverse of entity encoding.

Supported forms

• Named entities — &, <, >, ", ', and other common names
• Decimal numeric — é → é
• Hexadecimal numeric — ' → apostrophe

The decoder scans for &…; sequences and replaces them when recognized; unrecognized sequences are left intact so you can spot typos.

When to use it

Read exported CMS HTML, recover original punctuation from XML feeds, or verify round-trips after encoding with the companion text-to-entities tool.

Limitations

Malformed entities (missing semicolon, unknown name) may remain partially encoded. The tool does not parse full HTML documents or strip tags — only entity substitution on the pasted string. Security note: decoding untrusted entities before injecting into HTML can reintroduce markup if subsequent escaping is skipped.

Example

For example, enter the default sample values on the form and compare the output with a known reference; adjust one input at a time to see how the result changes.