How to Convert HTML, Markdown, or RTF to Plain Text Online
tags become line breaks, tags create double line breaks for paragraph separation, and tags add line breaks, and tags insert tabs for basic table structure. All HTML entities are automatically decoded — becomes a space, < becomes <, > becomes >, & becomes &, " becomes ", and all other named and numeric entities are converted to their character equivalents. After stripping tags and decoding entities, the tool cleans up excessive whitespace, limiting consecutive newlines to a maximum of two and collapsing multiple spaces into single spaces.
Markdown to Text mode removes all Markdown formatting syntax while keeping the text. Code blocks (triple backticks), inline code (single backticks), headings (# symbols), bold (**text** or __text__), italic (*text* or _text_), links ([text](url)), images (), blockquotes (> quote), horizontal rules (---, ***, ___), list markers (-, *, +, 1.), and strikethrough (~~text~~) are all stripped away, leaving only the plain text content. Links are converted by keeping the display text and discarding the URL — so [Click here](https://example.com) becomes just 'Click here'. This is useful for converting Markdown documentation, README files, or blog posts to plain text for copying into emails, text editors, or systems that don't support Markdown formatting.
RTF to Text mode extracts plain text from Rich Text Format (.rtf) documents by removing RTF control codes, formatting instructions, and metadata. RTF is a complex format created by Microsoft that uses control words like \rtf1, \ansi, \fonttbl, and brace-delimited groups to encode rich formatting. This converter strips all control words (backslash-prefixed commands), removes nested braces and their content, and extracts the readable text. It's a basic implementation suitable for common RTF files — complex documents with embedded objects, images, or advanced formatting may not parse perfectly, but the text content should be successfully extracted. All conversion modes work in real-time — the output updates instantly as you paste or type. Click Copy to send the plain text to your clipboard, or Clear to reset both input and output fields.
Plain text extraction is a common workflow in content migration, data cleaning, and text analysis. Web developers strip HTML from CMS exports when migrating between platforms, data engineers extract text from email HTML for NLP pipelines and sentiment analysis, and content teams convert Markdown documentation into plain text for compatibility with legacy systems or plain-text email newsletters. The output from this converter pairs well with the Text Analyzer on this site for word count and readability scoring, or with the Text Cleaner to normalize whitespace and remove special characters from the extracted text.
Why Use This Free HTML to Plain Text Converter?
- Three powerful conversion modes in one tool — HTML, Markdown, and RTF to plain text
- Intelligent HTML parsing — preserves paragraph breaks, line breaks, and basic structure
- Automatic HTML entity decoding — handles , <, >, &, and all other entities
- Complete Markdown syntax removal — strips formatting while keeping content
- RTF text extraction — removes rich formatting codes and control words
- Real-time conversion — output updates instantly as you paste or type
- 100% browser-based and private — your content never leaves your device or touches any server
Frequently Asked Questions
What HTML entities does the tool decode, and are custom entities supported?
The tool decodes all standard HTML entities — both named entities like (non-breaking space), < (<), > (>), & (&), " ("), ' ('), © (©), ® (®), and numeric entities like A (A) and A (A in hex). The decoder uses the browser's built-in HTML entity parser via the textarea.innerHTML property, which means it supports the full set of HTML5 named character references defined by the W3C — over 2,000 entities covering mathematical symbols, Greek letters, arrows, currency symbols, and special characters. Custom or invalid entities that the browser doesn't recognize will be left unchanged in the output. The entity decoding happens after tag stripping, so entities inside HTML tags are also properly decoded if they end up in the text content.
Does the HTML to Text converter preserve formatting like bold, italic, or links?
No. The HTML to Text converter is designed to extract pure plain text by stripping all formatting, tags, and markup — it does not preserve bold, italic, underline, font colors, font sizes, or any visual styling. All HTML tags are removed, including <b>, <strong>, <i>, <em>, <u>, <a>, <span>, <div>, and every other tag. The only structure that's preserved is line breaks from block-level tags (<br>, </p>, </div>, </li>) and tab characters from table cells (</td>). Hyperlinks are completely removed — the link text disappears along with the <a> tag. If you need to preserve some formatting or extract link URLs, consider using a different tool or manually editing the HTML before conversion. This tool is ideal for scenarios where you want clean, unformatted text — copying content into plain text editors, email bodies, chat messages, or systems that don't support HTML. The HTML parsing uses the browser's native DOMParser API, the same parser the browser uses to render web pages, ensuring accurate and standards-compliant tag stripping.
How accurate is the Markdown to Text conversion for complex Markdown documents?
The Markdown to Text converter handles all common Markdown syntax elements: headings (#), bold (**text**), italic (*text*), code blocks (```code```), inline code (`code`), links ([text](url)), images (), blockquotes (> quote), horizontal rules (---), unordered lists (-, *, +), ordered lists (1., 2.), and strikethrough (~~text~~). It works well for standard Markdown documents like README files, documentation, blog posts, and notes created in Markdown editors. However, it's a regex-based implementation, not a full Markdown parser, which means it may not handle every edge case perfectly — nested formatting, tables, footnotes, definition lists, and custom Markdown extensions (like GitHub-flavored Markdown task lists) may not be fully supported. Very complex documents with deeply nested elements or unusual formatting combinations might leave some residual syntax in the output. The original Markdown specification by John Gruber defines the core syntax this converter targets, while extensions like GFM add features beyond the baseline.
What's the difference between this RTF converter and opening an RTF file in a word processor?
Opening an RTF file in a word processor like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, or Apple Pages displays the formatted document with all styling preserved — bold, italic, fonts, colors, tables, images, and layout. This Plain Text Converter, on the other hand, strips all that formatting and extracts only the raw text content, similar to selecting all text in a word processor and pasting it into Notepad or a plain text editor. The key advantage of this tool is convenience — you can paste RTF content directly from your clipboard without needing to open a word processor, save a file, or perform multiple copy-paste steps. The RTF specification (version 1.9.1) was originally created by Microsoft in 1987 as an interchange format between word processors. The RTF to Text mode is a basic implementation that removes RTF control codes and formatting instructions but may not perfectly handle very complex RTF files with embedded objects, advanced tables, or non-standard RTF extensions. For best results, use this tool with RTF files that contain primarily text content with basic formatting.
Is my content safe and private when using this converter?
Yes. This plain text converter runs entirely in your browser using client-side JavaScript — no network request is made with your input at any point. Your HTML, Markdown, or RTF content is never uploaded to any server, never stored in any database, and never logged or analyzed by any third party. You can safely convert sensitive documents like confidential emails, private notes, internal documentation, legal contracts, or any other private content. All conversion — HTML tag stripping, entity decoding, Markdown syntax removal, and RTF parsing — happens locally on your device using JavaScript string manipulation, DOM APIs, and regular expressions. When you close or refresh the page, all input and output is immediately cleared from browser memory. For extra privacy assurance, the tool works offline — once the page loads, you can disconnect from the internet and continue converting text without any connection to external servers.
Can I use this tool to sanitize HTML and prevent XSS attacks?
This tool strips all HTML tags, which removes script tags and event handlers, but it is not designed as a security sanitizer and should not be used as one. Proper HTML sanitization for preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) requires allowlist-based filtering that preserves safe tags while removing dangerous ones, handles edge cases like malformed HTML, and accounts for techniques like attribute injection and protocol-based attacks (javascript: URLs). For security sanitization, use purpose-built libraries like DOMPurify (browser) or sanitize-html (Node.js), or use the browser's built-in Sanitizer API where supported. This tool's purpose is content extraction — converting formatted text to plain text — not security filtering. If you paste untrusted HTML into this tool and copy the plain text output, the result is safe because all markup is removed, but the tool itself should not be integrated into a security pipeline as a sanitizer.
What is an HTML stripper and when should I use one?
An HTML stripper removes all HTML tags, attributes, and markup from content, leaving only the visible plain text. This tool parses your HTML through the browser's built-in DOM parser, strips every element, decodes HTML entities (like & to &), and outputs clean text. Common use cases include: extracting readable content from web pages for NLP preprocessing and machine learning datasets, cleaning scraped HTML for text analysis or sentiment analysis pipelines, migrating content between CMS platforms that use different formatting systems, copying text from web pages without carrying over unwanted formatting into Google Docs or Word, and preparing content for plain-text channels like SMS or terminal output. Unlike regex-based strippers that can break on nested or malformed HTML, this tool uses the browser's native HTML parser, which correctly handles edge cases like unclosed tags, inline scripts, and deeply nested elements.
How do I create a plain text version of my HTML email?
Email clients like Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail require a plain text version (the text/plain MIME part) alongside your HTML email. This fallback displays when a recipient's client blocks HTML, and it improves deliverability scores with spam filters. To create one, paste your full HTML email into this tool and convert it. The output strips all styling, images, and layout markup while preserving the readable text content. You can then paste this plain text version into your ESP's plain text field — supported by Mailchimp, SendGrid, ConvertKit, Klaviyo, and virtually every email platform. Best practice is to lightly edit the plain text output: add line breaks between sections, spell out any link URLs that were embedded in anchor tags, and remove navigation or footer boilerplate that only makes sense in HTML. A well-crafted plain text version also helps accessibility for subscribers using screen readers or text-only email clients.
How do I remove all HTML formatting from a block of text?
Paste your HTML content into the input field on the left, and the tool instantly outputs clean text with all formatting removed on the right. This strips every HTML tag — including headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, links, images, spans, divs, and inline styles — leaving only the text content a user would see in a browser. The tool also decodes HTML entities, so < becomes <, & becomes &, and numeric entities like ’ render as their proper characters. Line breaks and paragraph spacing are preserved as newlines so the output remains readable rather than collapsing into a single block. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using the native DOMParser API, so your content is never uploaded to any server. This is useful for cleaning up content copied from websites, converting rich HTML documentation to plain text for README files, or preparing text for systems that do not support HTML rendering.
How does this compare to writing HTML-to-text parsing code in JavaScript?
In JavaScript, the typical approach is to create a DOM element, set its innerHTML, and read textContent — essentially: new DOMParser().parseFromString(html, 'text/html').body.textContent. This tool uses that same browser-native parsing under the hood, so the output matches what you would get programmatically. The advantage of using this tool is speed for one-off conversions: paste HTML, get text, done — no need to open a console, write a script, or install a Node.js package like html-to-text or cheerio. For developers building automated pipelines, writing your own parser gives you control over whitespace handling, link extraction, and list formatting. But for quick tasks like cleaning a single HTML snippet, checking what text a web crawler would extract, or verifying your HTML email's fallback text, this browser-based tool is faster than writing and running code. It handles malformed HTML, script/style tag removal, and entity decoding automatically.
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