Escape text for safe use in HTML, or turn HTML entities back into characters.
| Character | Named | Numeric | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| < | < | < | Less than |
| > | > | > | Greater than |
| & | & | & | Ampersand |
| " | " | " | Double quote |
| ' | ' | ' | Apostrophe |
| (space) | |   | Non-breaking space |
| © | © | © | Copyright |
| ® | ® | ® | Registered |
| ™ | ™ | ™ | Trademark |
| € | € | € | Euro |
| — | — | — | Em dash |
| … | … | … | Ellipsis |
Need to type these characters instead? The special characters page lets you copy them with one click.
HTML entities are codes that represent characters in HTML. They start with & and end with ;, such as < for < or © for ©. They let you show characters that would otherwise be read as HTML code, or that are hard to type.
In page text, always encode < and &. Inside attribute values, also encode the quote character used around the value (" or '). Encoding > is optional but common. Everything else, including emoji, can be written directly in a UTF-8 page.
Named entities such as é are easier to read, but only exist for some characters. Numeric entities such as é (decimal) or é (hex) work for every Unicode character.
Encoding < > & " and ' is the right defense when inserting untrusted text into HTML content or quoted attributes. It is not enough inside <script> blocks, URLs or CSS, which need their own escaping.