textcleanups

Strip HTML tags

Paste HTML and get readable plain text, with paragraphs and list items kept on their own lines.

Options

Your text stays in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or saved.

How to strip HTML tags

  1. Paste your HTML into the first box. It can be a full page or just a fragment.
  2. Copy the plain text from the result box.

What happens to your HTML

  • Tags are removed, keeping the text inside them. A link keeps its words but loses the address.
  • Scripts, styles and comments are removed completely, including their contents, so no code ends up in your text.
  • Structure is kept as line breaks. Paragraphs and headings are separated by blank lines, <br> becomes a line break, and list items start with a dash.
  • Entities are decoded, so &amp; becomes & and &rsquo; becomes an apostrophe.

The HTML is never run or displayed, only read as text, so it's safe to paste markup from any source.

Common uses

  • Getting readable text out of an HTML email or newsletter
  • Cleaning content exported from a CMS like WordPress
  • Counting words in a web page's content
  • Preparing web content for a plain-text field, like a meta description

Questions

Are links kept?

The link text is kept, but the URLs are removed along with the tags.

Is it safe to paste HTML from an unknown source?

Yes. The markup is treated as plain text and is never loaded, displayed or run in your browser.

Can I convert HTML to Markdown instead?

Not with this tool. It produces plain text. List items are prefixed with a dash, so simple lists will still read correctly in Markdown.