Skip to main content
Article Formatter

HTML to Plain Text Converter

Paste HTML markup and get clean, readable plain text. Strips all tags while preserving the structure of your content.

Options

0 characters
0 characters ยท 0 words

Why Remove HTML Tags from Text?

HTML is great for web browsers, but it is terrible for humans to read in its raw form. If you have ever opened a webpage's source code, you know what a mess of angle brackets and attributes looks like. Sometimes you just need the words - without the markup, the styling, the div tags, and the span wrappers. That is where an HTML to plain text converter comes in handy.

Maybe you scraped content from a website and need to extract the actual text. Or you received an HTML email and want to pull out the message without all the formatting tags. Or you are migrating content between platforms and need a clean starting point. Whatever the reason, manually removing HTML tags line by line is tedious and error-prone. This tool handles it in one click.

How This Converter Works

Instead of blindly stripping every tag and leaving you with a wall of text, this tool tries to keep your content readable. Block-level elements like paragraphs, headings, divs, and list items get converted to proper line breaks so the structure of the original document is preserved. Links can optionally show their URLs in parentheses so you do not lose important references. List items get bullet characters or numbers added in front of them.

HTML entities like &, <,  , and numeric character references get decoded back to their actual characters. The result is clean, readable text that you can paste into a plain text editor, a spreadsheet, a document, or anywhere else that does not support HTML formatting.

Common Uses

Content managers use this tool when moving articles between CMSes that handle formatting differently. SEO professionals use it to pull clean text from competitor pages for word count and content analysis. Developers use it to generate plain text versions of HTML emails (most email best practices recommend including a text-only version). Writers use it to strip formatting from web-sourced research notes so they can start fresh in their own style.

If you are working the other direction - going from Markdown to HTML - check out our Markdown to HTML Converter. And if your text has encoding issues from copying out of Microsoft Word or email, the main Article Formatter can fix those character problems before or after you strip the HTML.

Your Content Stays Private

All processing happens locally in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing gets uploaded to a server. Your HTML content is never stored, logged, or transmitted anywhere. The tool works completely offline once the page has loaded.

Want to strip HTML tags programmatically with JavaScript, Python, or the command line? Read our complete guide: How to Strip HTML Tags from Text.

Frequently Asked Questions

What HTML elements does this converter handle?
The converter handles all common HTML elements. Paragraphs, divs, and headings get proper line breaks. Ordered and unordered lists are converted to numbered or bulleted plain text. Links can optionally show their URLs in parentheses. Tables are converted with tab-separated columns. Horizontal rules become dashes. Style and script blocks are removed entirely. Any remaining tags are stripped while keeping the text content.
Is my HTML content sent to a server?
No. All conversion happens locally in your browser using JavaScript. Your HTML is never uploaded, stored, or transmitted anywhere. You can safely paste confidential HTML content - it stays on your computer. The tool works offline once the page has loaded.
How are HTML entities handled during conversion?
When the Decode HTML Entities option is enabled (on by default), the converter translates named entities like &amp; to &, &lt; to <, &nbsp; to a regular space, and many others including currency symbols and fractions. It also decodes numeric character references in both decimal and hexadecimal formats. This gives you clean, readable characters in the output.
What does the Preserve Link URLs option do?
When enabled, links are converted to the format "link text (URL)" so you keep both the visible text and the destination address. When disabled, only the link text is kept and the URL is discarded. This is useful when you need to preserve references for documentation or research, or when generating a plain text version of a web page that includes important outbound links.
Can I convert HTML emails to plain text with this tool?
Yes. HTML emails are one of the most common use cases. Paste the HTML source of an email and the tool extracts the readable text content while stripping all the layout tables, inline styles, and formatting tags that email clients use. Enable Preserve Link URLs to keep any important links from the email. The Clean Up Whitespace option helps remove the extra blank lines that email HTML often produces.