Strip HTML

Remove HTML tags from text in seconds

Strip HTML is a simple tool that removes all HTML tags from a piece of text. You paste your HTML, press the button and get plain text back. Paragraphs and line breaks are kept, so the text is still easy to read.

The tool does one thing only. There are no settings, no account and no pop-ups.

Nothing is stored, and there are no ads

All conversion happens locally in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is not sent to a server, it is not stored, and it is not logged. Close the tab and the text is gone.

There are no ads or tracking on the page either. That means you can safely use the tool for text you don't want to share with anyone.

When do you need to strip HTML from text?

There are plenty of situations where you have HTML and just need the text:

• You are moving content from a CMS like WordPress to another system.
• You want to reuse the text from a newsletter or an HTML email.
• You want to count the words in a text full of markup.
• You need to paste text into a field that only accepts plain text, such as a meta description.
• You copied the source code of a web page and only want the content.

Hidden tags from Word, Google Docs and other text editors

When you copy text from a text editor, you don't just copy the words. You also get a lot of hidden HTML. These are small tags and formatting you can't see, but they travel with the text to wherever you paste it.

That adds noise to the code. And it can change how your text looks without you noticing. Suddenly a paragraph has a different font, a fixed font size or a colour that doesn't match the rest of the page.

Try it yourself: Copy a paragraph from Word or Google Docs and paste it into the field at the top. The tool then shows the raw HTML hiding behind the text. Press Strip HTML, and only the text is left.

Microsoft Word

Word is the worst offender. A single sentence copied from Word can turn into several kilobytes of HTML. The text is wrapped in paragraphs with classes like MsoNormal, inline styles with mso- properties, fixed fonts like Calibri or Aptos and empty <o:p> tags. Empty lines often become paragraphs containing a non-breaking space ( ).

The result is text that looks right in Word but not in your CMS. Font, line height and margins follow Word instead of your website.

Google Docs

Google Docs typically wraps all the copied text in a <b> tag with an id like docs-internal-guid-… and font-weight:normal. Each piece of text also sits in a <span> with font size, colour and background colour.

If the system you paste into removes styles but keeps tags, all of your text can suddenly turn bold. And the fixed colours can make the text hard to read in dark mode.

Pages, Notes and other Apple apps

Apple apps also bring along fonts and spans with their own classes, such as Apple-converted-space. It's less than Word, but it's still formatting you didn't ask for.

LibreOffice and other word processors

Every word processor does it its own way. What they have in common is that they send their own formatting along, because they try to preserve the look of the document.

Emails from Outlook and Gmail

HTML emails are often built with tables, inline styles and hidden elements. If you copy text from an email into a document or a website, that structure comes along.

Web pages and AI chats

When you copy text from a website or from an AI chat like ChatGPT or Claude, you get the page's headings, links, colours and sometimes background colours too. That's why text can end up with a grey background or an odd colour when you paste it somewhere else.

Excel and Google Sheets

Cells from a spreadsheet become an HTML table with styles on every single cell. That's rarely what you want if you just need the content.

Where does hidden formatting cause problems?

• WordPress and other CMSs. Especially in the classic editor and in WYSIWYG fields, such as in ACF. Inline styles override the site's own design, so the text doesn't match the rest of the page.
• Newsletters. In tools like Mailchimp or other email platforms, Word formatting can make the email look different in different email clients.
• Accessibility. Fixed colours and font sizes can cause poor contrast, ignore the user's settings and break dark mode.
• Plain-text fields. Meta descriptions, social media posts, forms and systems that expect plain text can end up with tags or strange characters.
• Text analysis. If you need to count words or measure readability, hidden markup gives you the wrong numbers.

How Strip HTML helps

Use the tool as a clean stopover between your text editor and wherever the text is going:

1. Copy the text from Word, Google Docs, an email or a web page.
2. Paste it here. The tool shows the hidden HTML, so you can see what came along.
3. Press Strip HTML. All tags, styles, classes and comments disappear.
4. Copy the plain text and paste it into your CMS, newsletter or document.
5. Format the text there, using the headings and styles the system itself uses.

That way the text gets the look it's supposed to have, and nothing is hiding in the code.

Many apps also have a shortcut for pasting without formatting: Ctrl + Shift + V on Windows and Cmd + Shift + V or Cmd + Option + Shift + V on Mac, depending on the app. But it doesn't work everywhere. And if you have HTML source code that needs cleaning, the shortcut won't help. This tool will.

What happens to your HTML?

The tool reads your HTML the same way a browser does and extracts only the visible text:

• Tags are removed, such as <p>, <div>, <span> and <a>. The text inside them stays.
• Scripts and styles are removed entirely, including the contents of <script> and <style>.
• HTML entities are decoded, so & becomes & and é becomes é.
• Comments are removed, so <!-- … --> is left out.
• Formatting from Word and Google Docs is removed, such as fonts, colours, mso- styles and classes.
• Paragraphs and line breaks are kept, and extra whitespace is cleaned up.

The code in your HTML is never executed. It is only read as text.

How to use the tool

1. Paste your HTML or copied text into the top field.
2. Press Strip HTML (or Ctrl/Cmd + Enter).
3. Press Copy text to copy the result.

Do you need to count words too?

Once you have plain text, you can use my word counter to count words, characters and sentences. It works the same way: fast, free and without storing anything.