Escape & < > " ' to put code on a page, decode named and numeric entities, and copy special characters with their codes: the non-breaking space, dashes, guillemets, ₽, №, arrows. A click on a symbol or a code copies it.
Text is processed in your browser and goes nowhere
« and « give the same guillemet. Names are easier to read but not every character has one — ₽ and the narrow no-break space do not. A numeric reference works for any Unicode character.
&lt; is an escaped <. Decoding removes one layer at a time: removing all at once would quietly spoil an article about HTML where < must stay as it is.
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Frequently asked questions
Write or the number   — the browser shows an ordinary space but never breaks the line there. It keeps initials with a surname, short words with the next word and numbers with their units. Between a number and its unit, as in “10 kg”, typographers prefer the narrow no-break space  . In the table below, a click on a symbol or any code copies it.
There is no named entity for the rouble: the sign entered Unicode only in 2014, after the list of names was drawn up. Use the numeric form ₽ or ₽. If the page is in UTF-8, as nearly every page is today, you can paste the ₽ character itself and it shows as is. The table of special characters copies any of these variants.
Replace three characters: < with <, > with > and & with &. The browser then shows the tag as text instead of running it. Inside attributes, quotes are replaced too: " with " and ' with '. Paste the code into Escape in the “dangerous only” mode to get a ready fragment for an article, documentation or a comment that shows markup.
In the result there is none: both give the guillemet «. The first is a named entity and is easier to read in code. The second is a numeric reference, the decimal Unicode number of the character; there is also the hexadecimal form «. Numeric references work for any character, while names exist for far from all — the rouble sign, for example, has none.
The text was escaped twice: &lt; instead of <. This happens when already escaped text is escaped again — for example, when copying from a site’s admin panel. The tool removes one layer at a time so as not to spoil text where < must stay as it is, such as an article about HTML. Press Decode again to remove the next layer.
For most characters, no: in UTF-8 you write them as they are and the browser shows them correctly. Entities are required only for & < > and for quotes inside attributes, otherwise the browser takes them for markup. They are also handy for invisible characters such as the non-breaking space or the soft hyphen: is visible in code, the character itself is not.