HTML to Text Converter (Strip HTML)
Convert HTML to text online. Strip HTML tags and get plain text with paragraphs and links preserved. Free HTML stripper, no signup required.
1,174 characters of HTML → 0 characters of text (100% smaller). 0 links, 0 emails found.
What Is an HTML to Text Converter?
An HTML to text converter removes the tags from an HTML document and returns the readable content as plain text, keeping the structure a reader needs: paragraph breaks, list markers, table rows and link targets. Deleting everything between angle brackets is not enough, because a page also contains scripts, styles, hidden elements and encoded entities that would leak into the output.
This html stripper parses the markup into a document tree, walks it and writes text the way a text-only browser would. It runs entirely in your browser.
How to Strip HTML to Plain Text
- Paste HTML source into the left pane, or paste formatted text copied from a page; the HTML on the clipboard is captured automatically.
- Tick Main content only for a full web page so menus and footers are skipped.
- Choose how links and images should appear, and a wrap width if the text is going into an email or a fixed-width file.
- Tick Extract links or Extract emails to append a list of every URL or address found.
- Copy the text or download it as a .txt file. The line under the panes shows how many characters were removed.
How Each Element Is Converted
| HTML | Plain text |
|---|---|
<p>, <h1>–<h6>, <blockquote> | Paragraph separated by a blank line |
<br>, <div> | Line break |
<ul><li> / <ol><li> | - item / 1. item, nested lists indented |
<table> rows | One line per row, cells separated by tabs |
<a href> | text (url) or text only |
<img alt> | Alt text or nothing |
<pre> | Whitespace preserved |
<script>, <style>, <noscript>, hidden elements | Removed |
&, , — | Decoded characters |
Extracting Links and Emails
With Extract links on, a Links section is appended listing each unique URL once, with its anchor text when the two differ. Extract emails appends every address found in the text or in mailto links. The counts appear in the status line, so the page doubles as a quick link and contact extractor for a saved newsletter or a scraped listing.
When to Use an HTML to Text Converter
Plain text is what you want for the text part of a multipart email, for feeding an article into a search index or a language model, for diffing two versions of a page, or for reading a saved page without its chrome. An html to text converter that respects block structure gives you readable output in one paste instead of a wall of words. Pair it with the HTML to markdown tool when you want to keep headings and emphasis, and with the markdown to plain text tool when the source is markdown rather than HTML.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I convert HTML to text without losing the paragraphs?
Paste the HTML into the left pane. The html to text converter parses it as a document rather than deleting tags with a regex, so block elements such as p, h1 to h6, li, tr and blockquote each start on their own line and paragraphs are separated by a blank line. Inline elements like span, strong and a stay on the same line.
What does Main content only do?
It drops nav, header, footer and aside elements, plus anything with a navigation, banner, contentinfo or complementary role, and it uses the main or article element as the root when the page has one. Use it on a saved web page to keep the article and skip the menus, cookie notices and footers.
Can I paste formatted text instead of HTML source?
Yes. When you copy text from a web page, Word or Google Docs, the clipboard carries an HTML version. Paste it into the input pane and the tool captures that HTML automatically, then strips it to plain text. The pane shows a rich text captured badge when this happens.
How are links, images and tables handled?
Links become text (url) by default, or just the text if you choose text only. Images become their alt text or are dropped. Table rows become one line each with the cells separated by tabs, which pastes cleanly into a spreadsheet. HTML entities such as & and are decoded.
Does the html stripper send my page to a server?
No. Parsing runs in your browser with the DOM parser it already has. Nothing is uploaded, which also means you cannot enter a URL here; save or copy the page first.