About the HTML to Text Converter
HTML to Text Converter turns a page of markup into the words a reader would see. Paste HTML from a web page, an email template or a CMS export and the tool removes the tags, drops scripts, styles and comments, decodes entities such as & and é, and keeps the shape of the text with line breaks for paragraphs and headings, bullets and numbers for lists and tabs between table cells. You can choose to show link addresses next to link text, keep image descriptions or shrink extra blank lines. A count of words, characters and lines is shown, and the result can be copied or saved as a .txt file. Nothing is run or displayed as a web page, and the conversion happens in your browser without uploading your HTML.
Updated September 2026
How to use the HTML to Text Converter
- 1Paste your HTML into the left box.
- 2Choose the options you want: link addresses, list bullets, image descriptions or tidy blank lines.
- 3The plain text appears on the right as you type.
- 4Check the word and line count under the result.
- 5Press Copy text or Download .txt.
When you need plain text
HTML is made for browsers, not for reading or for tools that only work with words. You may want to check the copy in an email template, get the text out of a CMS export, feed an article into a word counter, prepare content for a plain-text email or clear formatting from something you copied. Doing it by hand means deleting tags one at a time and fixing every entity, which is slow and easy to get wrong.
This converter does it in one step and keeps enough structure, such as paragraphs and lists, that the text stays readable.
What is removed and what is kept
- Removed: tags, comments, scripts, styles, head content and inline SVG.
- Kept: text, entities as real characters and the order of the content.
- Structure: line breaks for paragraphs, headings and table rows, bullets and numbers for lists.
- Options: link addresses, image descriptions and blank-line tidying.
Tips for better results
Paste the part of the page you want, such as the article body, rather than the whole document, if the page has menus and footers. Turn on link addresses if you need to keep references, for example when the text will be printed. If the output has too many blank lines, keep Shrink extra blank lines on.
Preformatted blocks, such as code samples, keep their own line breaks. Text that JavaScript adds to a page after it loads is not in the HTML, so it will not appear in the result.
Related tools
Word Counter and Character Counter measure the result, Case Converter changes capital letters, Remove Line Breaks joins lines into paragraphs, Remove Duplicate Lines cleans lists and Diff Checker compares the text before and after. Text Encoding Converter shows entities and code points for single characters.
Features
- Removes tags, scripts, styles and comments
- Decodes named and numeric entities
- Keeps paragraphs, headings and line breaks
- Bullets and numbers for lists
- Optional link addresses and image descriptions
- Keeps line breaks inside pre blocks
- Word, character and line counts
- Copy or download, all in your browser
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove HTML tags from text?
Paste the HTML into the box and the plain text appears on the right at once. The tool deletes every tag, and it also removes the content of script, style and head sections, which are not part of the readable page.
Does it keep paragraphs and lists?
Yes. Block elements such as paragraphs, headings, divs and table rows start on new lines, br tags become line breaks, and list items get a dash or a number if you leave bullets switched on. Table cells are separated by tabs.
What happens to links and images?
By default only the link text is kept. Tick Show link addresses to get text followed by the address in brackets, and tick Keep image descriptions to keep the alt text of pictures in square brackets. Empty links and anchors that point within the page are shown as plain text.
Does it decode entities such as & and ?
Yes. Common named entities such as &, <, © and é and all numeric ones such as € and € are turned into the real characters. A non-breaking space becomes an ordinary space in the result. An unknown name is left as typed.
Is it safe to paste HTML from an unknown source?
Yes. The tool reads the markup as text and never runs it or shows it as a page, so scripts in the input do nothing. The result contains only text.
Why does my text look different from the page in a browser?
A browser applies styles that this tool does not know, such as hidden elements or content added by scripts. The converter reads what is written in the HTML itself, so text created by JavaScript after the page loads will not appear.
Can I convert a live web page by its address?
Not directly, because browsers stop a tool from reading other sites. Open the page, use View source or Save as, copy the HTML and paste it here. For a whole article you can also copy the visible text from the page.