HTML to Text Converter (Strip Tags)
Paste HTML, get clean plain text. Strips tags, keeps line breaks, decodes entities. Runs locally.
What this tool does
This tool converts an HTML string into plain text: it strips the HTML tags and
returns the words a reader would see. Rather than deleting everything between angle
brackets (which breaks on attributes, comments, and entities), it parses the markup
with the browser's built-in DOMParser and reads the text out of the
resulting document. Block elements like <p>, <div>,
<li>, <h1> through <h6>, and
table rows become line breaks; <br> becomes a line break; excess
whitespace is collapsed; and HTML entities such as & are decoded
back to their real characters. Everything runs in your browser. You can verify by
opening DevTools and watching the Network tab: zero requests.
How to use it
Paste or type your HTML into the input box. The plain text appears immediately, and
you can also press Convert. Two options control the output.
Preserve line breaks (on by default) turns block elements and
<br> into line breaks; turn it off to flatten everything into one
space-separated paragraph. Collapse multiple blank lines squeezes any
run of three or more newlines down to a single blank line. Use Copy result
to copy the output. Example: <p>Hello <b>world</b></p><p>Bye</p>
becomes Hello world on one line and Bye on the next.
Common use cases
- Pulling readable copy out of an HTML email or a snippet of rendered markup.
- Removing HTML tags from CMS or scraper output before pasting into a plain-text field.
- Getting a clean word count by first stripping the markup, then counting the text.
- Turning a formatted article into plain text for a note, a prompt, or a commit message.
- Sanity-checking what text a page actually exposes, with script and style noise removed.
Common pitfalls
- Stripping tags is not sanitizing. This tool removes markup to give you text; it is not a security filter. If you need to safely display user HTML, use a dedicated sanitizer (for example DOMPurify), not a text extractor.
- Layout whitespace is not preserved. Multiple spaces, tabs, and
source newlines inside the HTML collapse to single spaces, because that is how a
browser renders them. Content inside
<pre>is treated like any other block, so its exact spacing is not kept. - Only visible text comes through. The contents of
<script>,<style>,<noscript>, and<template>are skipped, and attribute values (likealtortitle) are not included. You get what a reader sees, not the full source.
Frequently asked questions
- What does this HTML to text converter do?
- It parses an HTML string with the browser DOMParser and returns the visible plain text with all tags stripped. Block elements such as paragraphs, div, list items, headings, and table rows are turned into line breaks, and <br> tags become line breaks as well. Runs of whitespace are collapsed, HTML entities are decoded, and the contents of script and style tags are removed. The result is the text a reader would see if the markup were rendered.
- Does this tool run scripts in the HTML I paste?
- No. DOMParser builds a document from your HTML but never executes any script it contains, so pasting markup that includes a script tag is safe here. On top of that, the converter skips the contents of script, style, noscript, and template tags entirely, so their code never appears in the output. Nothing you paste leaves your browser.
- What is the difference between stripping tags and extracting text?
- A naive strip that just deletes anything between angle brackets can break on quoted attributes, comments, or malformed markup, and it leaves entities like & undecoded. This tool instead parses the HTML into a real document and reads the text nodes, which handles nested tags, attributes, comments, and entities correctly. That is why the output matches what a browser would actually show.
- How are line breaks decided?
- With Preserve line breaks turned on, each block-level element (paragraph, div, list item, heading, table row, and similar) ends a line, and every <br> is a line break. Inline elements such as b, i, span, and a do not add breaks. With the option off, all whitespace collapses to single spaces and the whole result becomes one paragraph, which is useful when you only want the words.
- What does the collapse multiple blank lines option do?
- When it is on, any run of three or more consecutive newlines is reduced to a single blank line, which tidies output that came from stacked <br> tags or deeply nested empty blocks. When it is off, those extra blank lines are kept exactly as produced. Two adjacent block elements are always separated by a single line break, not a blank line, so ordinary paragraphs stay compact either way.
- Are HTML entities decoded, and is my HTML uploaded anywhere?
- Entities are decoded automatically because a real DOM parser reads the markup: & becomes an ampersand, < becomes a less-than sign, becomes a space, and © becomes the copyright sign. The conversion happens entirely in your browser with the built-in DOMParser, so nothing is uploaded and there are no network requests during use. You can confirm this by watching the Network tab in DevTools while you convert.
Cite this tool
For academic, journalistic, or technical references. Pick a format:
Citations use 2026 as the publication year. Access date is left as a fillable placeholder where the citation style expects one.