HTML Strip Tags - Complete Guide

HTML strip tags removes all HTML/XML tags from text, leaving only the plain text content. Essential for content extraction, data sanitization, text analysis, and converting rich content to plain text for processing.

How It Works

Parse the HTML using regex or DOM parser, identify all tag elements (<...>), and remove them while preserving text content between tags. Handle special cases like script/style content, comments, and entities.

Technical Details

Simple regex: /<[^>]*>/g removes tags but may fail on edge cases. DOM parsing (DOMParser) is more robust. Also consider: decoding entities (& → &), removing script/style content entirely, handling CDATA, preserving meaningful whitespace.

Common Use Cases

1. Content Extraction: Extract readable text from web pages.
   • Example: <p>Hello <b>World</b></p> → Hello World
2. Search Indexing: Index plain text for full-text search.
   • Example: Strip HTML before indexing
3. Email Plain Text: Generate plain text version of HTML emails.
4. Data Sanitization: Remove HTML before database storage or display.

Code Examples

Strip HTML Tags

// Simple regex (may fail on edge cases)
function stripTagsSimple(html) {
  return html.replace(/<[^>]*>/g, '');
}

// DOM-based (more robust)
function stripTagsDOM(html) {
  const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(html, 'text/html');
  return doc.body.textContent || '';
}

// With script/style removal
function stripTagsFull(html) {
  // Remove script and style contents
  let text = html.replace(/<script[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/script>/gi, '');
  text = text.replace(/<style[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/style>/gi, '');

  // Parse remaining HTML
  const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(text, 'text/html');
  return doc.body.textContent || '';
}

// Decode entities
function decodeEntities(text) {
  const textarea = document.createElement('textarea');
  textarea.innerHTML = text;
  return textarea.value;
}

// Complete solution
function extractText(html) {
  const stripped = stripTagsFull(html);
  return decodeEntities(stripped).trim();
}

Multiple approaches from simple regex to full DOM parsing. DOM method handles edge cases better.

Tips & Best Practices

• Use DOM parser for complex HTML
• Remove script/style content entirely
• Decode HTML entities if needed
• Preserve paragraph spacing with block elements
• Test with nested and malformed HTML

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Using regex on complex nested HTML
• Forgetting to remove script content
• Not decoding HTML entities
• Losing meaningful whitespace
• Relying on strip tags for security

When to Use This Tool

Use HTML strip tags when extracting plain text from HTML content for search indexing, content processing, or data extraction.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are HTML entities decoded?

Depends on implementation. Full stripping should decode & to &, < to <, etc. Some tools leave entities as-is. Check if entity decoding is needed.

What about script/style tags?

Should remove entire content of script and style tags, not just the tags themselves. Otherwise JavaScript code appears as text.

Is this safe for sanitization?

For display sanitization, proper HTML sanitizers (DOMPurify) are better. Strip tags is for text extraction, not security. XSS prevention needs dedicated tools.

How is whitespace handled?

Block elements (div, p) should add spacing. Multiple spaces may collapse. Line breaks may or may not be preserved. Check tool behavior.

Get Started

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Last updated: June 27, 2026