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What the HTML Tag Stripper does
The HTML Tag Stripper removes every HTML tag from a snippet and keeps only the readable text. Paste markup on the left and the plain text appears on the right as you type. HTML entities are decoded along the way, so & becomes & and becomes a space.
The text is extracted the way the browser itself does it: the snippet is parsed into an element that is never added to the page and its textContent is read. Line breaks that were in the source are kept, runs of three or more blank lines are collapsed to one blank line, and leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed. Scripts in the pasted HTML are not run.
When to use it
- Pasting content from a CMS or an email template into a plain-text field.
- Counting the words of a web article with the Word & Character Counter without markup inflating the count.
- Preparing text for a translation tool or a search index.
- Recovering the copy from an HTML export when the layout is not needed.
Worked example
Input
<h1>Hello</h1>
<p>This is <strong>bold</strong> and <em>italic</em> text.</p>Output
Hello
This is bold and italic text.Common questions about the HTML Tag Stripper
Is it safe to paste HTML that contains scripts?
Yes. Scripts inside the pasted markup are not executed, because the snippet is parsed into a detached element. Inline event handlers are not triggered either.
Why do some words run together?
Block tags such as <p> or <li> do not add spaces or line breaks of their own; only the whitespace that was in the source remains. If the HTML is minified onto one line, put a line break after closing block tags first.
Does it keep the text of links?
It keeps the link text and drops the URL, because the URL lives in the href attribute rather than in the text. If you need the addresses, copy them from the source before stripping, or rewrite links as text (url) first.
Is the content of style or script tags removed?
No. textContent includes the text inside <style> and <script> elements, so CSS or JavaScript in the snippet shows up in the output. Delete those blocks before stripping.
Is this tool free?
Yes, it's free to use. No signup, no email required. Get results on this page.
How do I get my result?
Use the tool on this page. Your result appears here; no email delivery is required.