What This Tool Does
Unlike a basic HTML stripper that simply deletes every tag it finds, this converter understands document structure. It renders headings with Markdown-style prefixes so you can tell an <h1> from an <h2> at a glance, converts list items to bullet points or dashes, and appends link destinations in parentheses so URLs are not silently discarded. The result is plain text that retains the hierarchy and reference information of the original page — useful for content audits, editorial review, summarisation pipelines, or feeding into tools that expect plain text.
How to Use
- Paste your HTML into the input panel.
- Select a Headings style: Markdown prefixes headings with
#symbols; Plain keeps the heading text without markers. - Choose a List style — bullet points (
•), dashes (-), or plain text — to control how<li>items appear. - Toggle Include link URLs to append or discard
hrefdestinations from anchor tags. - Copy or download the extracted text from the output panel.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from the HTML Stripper tool?
The HTML Stripper is a blunt instrument — it removes every tag and gives you whatever text is left. This converter is context-aware: it maps heading tags to hierarchical markers, list items to bullet characters, and links to inline references before stripping. The output reads like a structured document rather than a stream of concatenated text nodes. Use the stripper when you only need raw words; use this tool when the document structure matters.
What happens to images and other non-text elements?
Images, video embeds, canvas elements, and similar media tags are removed entirely because they have no meaningful plain-text equivalent. The tool does not attempt to use alt text from images at this time. If preserving image descriptions is important for your workflow, consider using the HTML Stripper with Preserve mode and manually handling the alt attributes, or pre-processing the HTML to replace <img> tags with their alt values before pasting.
Are inline styles and CSS class names stripped?
Yes. All tag attributes — including class, style, id, data-*, and everything else — are discarded during conversion. Only the semantic meaning of specific tags (headings, lists, links, bold, italic) is carried forward into the text output. The result is clean and free of presentation markup.
Can I use this on the server or in a build script?
This tool runs in the browser, but the underlying logic is straightforward JavaScript that you can copy and adapt for a Node.js script, a Cloudflare Worker, or any server environment that runs JS. The conversion uses only standard regex and string methods with no DOM dependency, so it works in any JavaScript runtime without modification.