✍️ Text & Writing

HTML to Plain Text

Paste HTML and it strips the tags, keeping just the body text. Line breaks, lists and   are turned into natural plain text you can paste straight into an email or note. Everything runs in your browser.

Examples (click to try)
Paste HTML and the body text appears here

How to use the HTML to plain text tool

New here? Press one of the "Examples (click to try)" chips — a sample loads and the result shows right away. Then just paste HTML source into the text area above. It extracts live as you type. To also keep link destinations, tick "Keep link URLs".

Example: HTML with a list

Paste HTML like this:

<h2>What you can do</h2>
<p>Benri is&nbsp;free, no sign-up.</p>
<ul><li>Format JSON</li><li>Make QR codes</li></ul>

You get this (tags removed, list markers added, &nbsp; as a space):

What you can do

Benri is free, no sign-up.

- Format JSON
- Make QR codes
  • Tag stripping: removes HTML tags and keeps the body text. <script> and <style> contents are ignored.
  • Line breaks: <br> becomes a newline; paragraphs, headings and <div> blocks get breaks around them.
  • Lists: <li> gets "- " (or "1. " inside <ol>).
  • Entities: &nbsp;, &amp;, &lt; and friends are decoded to their real characters.
  • Keep link URLs: when on, appends (URL) after each <a>'s text.

When it comes in handy

  • Copying just the body of an HTML email or web page into a note
  • Flattening tag-heavy rich text into plain text
  • Removing tags before counting characters (pairs with the Character Counter)

To escape characters into HTML instead, see the HTML Escape / Unescape tool.

FAQ

Is my HTML sent to any server?
No. Tag stripping and text extraction happen entirely within your browser, and your HTML is never sent to or stored on any server. It is safe to use even with email bodies or internal documents.
How are line breaks and lists handled?
<br> becomes a line break, and block elements like paragraphs, headings and <div> get line breaks before and after. <li> gets a leading marker (- , or 1. for ordered <ol> lists), and &nbsp; becomes a regular space. Runs of blank lines are collapsed to a single blank line for natural plain text.
Can I keep link URLs?
Yes. Turn on "Keep link URLs" to append the destination as (URL) after the <a> text. When off, only the link text is kept.