Strip HTML Tags Tool

How it is calculated

The tool works in these steps. First it deletes <script> and <style> blocks together with everything inside them. Next, <br> and block tags such as <p>, <div>, headings and list items become line breaks, and table cells become a space, so neighbouring words stay apart. All remaining tags are removed without adding anything, so text touching an inline tag like <span> stays joined. Then HTML entities are decoded: & becomes & and   becomes a non-breaking space character. Finally runs of spaces and tabs shrink to one space, blank space around line breaks and at both ends is trimmed, and the characters of the result are counted. Entities are decoded last, so an escaped tag such as <b> survives as visible text.

Common mistakes

• Expecting inline tags to add a space. <span>a</span><span>b</span> becomes ab; only block tags, <br> and table cells separate text, so add the spaces yourself if words must stay apart.
• Pasting content that was already escaped (such as <b>) and expecting it to be removed. Escaped tags are decoded after stripping and come back as literal <b> text.
• Using the output as a security filter for untrusted input. It cleans text for reading, but a decoded <script> reappears as text, so it must still be escaped before it is shown on a page.
• Comparing the character count with a word-processor count. Here it counts characters after decoding and trimming, so & counts as one character and a   as one character that is not a normal space.
• Worrying that a plain comparison like a < b will be cut. A lone angle bracket that does not form a tag is kept as typed.