Text to HTML Converter
Paste plain text and get clean HTML markup. Wraps paragraphs, converts line breaks, escapes special characters, and auto-links URLs.
How to use the text to HTML converter
Paste plain text on the left and the HTML markup appears on the right in real time. Use the sidebar toggles to control the output.
1. Drop your text
Copy from Word, Notion, a Google Doc, an email, or any plain-text source. The default sample shows what to expect. Replace it with your own content.
2. Pick your options
The three core toggles are on by default: wrap paragraphs in <p>, convert single newlines to <br>, and escape special characters. Turn on auto-link if your text has URLs, and turn on bold/italic if your source uses Markdown-style asterisks.
3. Choose an output mode
Pretty mode prints one tag per line with two-space indents (good for editing). Plain mode keeps each paragraph on its own line without indents. Minified mode strips all newlines so you can paste into a JSON field or a database row.
4. Copy or download
The Copy button sends the output to your clipboard. The Download button saves the markup as a .html file you can open in a browser or attach to an email.
When you need to convert text to HTML
Pasting Word or Notion into a CMS
Most CMS editors mangle the formatting when you paste from a word processor. Convert the text first, then paste the clean HTML into the source view. No leftover spans, no class soup. See also: text cleaner. See also: remove line breaks.
Newsletter and Mailchimp HTML
Draft your newsletter in any writing app, then convert to HTML for the email platform. Paragraphs and line breaks render the same way in Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.
Simple blog post markup
For static blogs and Jekyll/Hugo sites where the front matter expects HTML in the body, this tool gives you valid markup without spinning up a Markdown processor.
ESL and HTML practice
Students learning HTML can paste a paragraph from a textbook, run the converter, and read the markup output to see how plain text maps to tags. Toggle features on and off to compare the changes.
Forum and comment fields
Some forums accept a small set of HTML tags in comments. Convert your draft to clean p, br, strong, em, and a tags, then paste in. Anything more advanced gets stripped by the forum filter anyway.
HTML emails and signatures
Build a quick HTML email signature from a plain-text block. Auto-link URLs so the recipient can click your website, and pretty-format the output so you can hand-tune the styling. Many email clients impose character caps on signatures, so verify the final markup length with the Character Counter.
HTML escape rules
Five characters carry special meaning in HTML. When your plain text contains any of them, the browser tries to interpret them as markup and your output breaks. The converter swaps each one for its named or numeric entity so the browser shows the literal character.
| Character | Entity | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
< | < | Opens a tag. If unescaped, the browser starts reading a tag name and consumes your text until the next >. |
> | > | Closes a tag. Less destructive than < on its own, but pairs of angle brackets in your prose still render as malformed tags. |
& | & | Starts an entity. An unescaped ampersand followed by a word like "amp" or "lt" can be silently swallowed by the browser. |
" | " | Closes attribute values. Inside a tag attribute, an unescaped double quote ends the value early and breaks the tag. |
' | ' | Closes attribute values when the attribute uses single quotes. Less common, but still a source of broken markup. |
Keep the Escape special chars toggle on for any text destined for a live web page. Turn it off only when you are intentionally pasting raw HTML you want preserved as markup.
Going the other direction
If you have HTML and you want plain text instead, use the Remove HTML Tags from Text tool. It strips every tag, decodes the entities, and gives you back the readable text underneath.
The two tools pair well: convert plain to HTML for publishing, strip HTML back to plain when you need to repaste content into a writing app or a chat thread. For other format swaps - list to CSV, vertical text, mirror text - see all text converters.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
What does the text to HTML converter do?
It takes plain text and produces valid HTML markup. Blank-line separated blocks become paragraphs wrapped in <p> tags. Single line breaks become <br> tags. Special characters like ampersand, less-than, and greater-than are escaped so they render as text instead of breaking your markup.
Why do I need to escape special characters?
If you paste a sentence like "Use < and > to define tags" directly into an HTML page, the browser tries to read the angle brackets as tag markers and your text breaks. Escaping replaces them with named entities (< and >) so the browser shows them as literal characters. Always keep Escape special chars on unless you are intentionally pasting raw HTML.
Should I wrap paragraphs in p tags?
Yes for most use cases. CMS editors, newsletter platforms, and blog templates expect content split into paragraph blocks for spacing and accessibility. The toggle is on by default. Turn it off only when you are pasting into a context that already wraps text (a comment field, a Markdown editor, an existing <p> element).
What is the difference between p tags and br tags?
A <p> tag is a block element. It groups a chunk of text with spacing above and below, like a paragraph in a book. A <br> tag is an inline break inside a paragraph, like a line break in a poem or an address block. The converter uses blank lines in your input as paragraph boundaries and single newlines as <br> breaks (when both toggles are on).
How does auto-link work?
When the Auto-link URLs toggle is on, any string that looks like a web address (starts with http://, https://, or www.) is wrapped in an <a> tag with href set to that URL. The link text is the URL itself. The tool does not modify email addresses or relative paths.
Can it handle markdown-style bold and italic?
Yes. Turn on the bold and italic toggle and the converter swaps double asterisks (**bold**) for <strong> tags and single asterisks (*italic*) for <em> tags. It also accepts underscores (_italic_, __bold__). This is a light Markdown subset, not a full Markdown parser. For full Markdown, use a dedicated tool. If you need to go the other way and strip HTML back to plain text, use remove HTML tags.
What does pretty-indented output mean?
Pretty mode prints each block-level tag on its own line with two-space indentation, so the HTML reads cleanly in a code editor. Plain mode puts each paragraph on its own line with no indentation. Minified mode strips all newlines and indentation for compact one-line output. Pick Pretty for editing, Minified for embedding into JSON or a database field.
I'm converting blog drafts and CMS-bound copy into HTML before publishing. Does my unreleased content go anywhere?
No. The text-to-HTML conversion runs in your browser. Unpublished blog drafts and pre-CMS copy stay on your device. The marked-up HTML output is produced locally and is yours to copy or download.
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