Displaying html code as text

How to Display HTML Tags as Text

Are you looking for a solution to display HTML tags as text? Maybe you’re trying to show HTML code on your webpage as it is. Or maybe you type a symbol like greater than ‘>’ and it is not showing on your webpage as text.

Hopefully, we have three different solutions to solve this problem. In this tutorial, we’re going to explore all the methods to display HTML tags as text. So, let’s begin with the first one.

How to Display HTML Tags as Text

1. Use HTML Entities to Show HTML Tags as Text

Using HTML entities is the most effective and safe method to show HTML tags as text. HTML Entities are special codes that represent reserved characters. We use entities to replace HTML-reserved characters like ‘’ to show HTML tags as text.

Here, is the list of the most popular HTML Entities below.

Character	Entity Name	Entity Number	Description
	<	<	less than
>	>	>	greater than
&	&	&	ampersand
“	"	"	double quotation marks
‘	'	'	single quotation mark
		non-breaking space

All you have to do is just replace each character with their entity names or numbers in HTML code and the browser will output them as text.

Example to use HTML Entities:

The below HTML code example will display This is Heading

as it is in your browser.

In your browser, it will display HTML tags as text instead of just “This is paragraph” as shown below.

But what if you have a lot of HTML tags with ‘’ symbols to display as text? For this, let’s go ahead to the next method that is easier than this one.

2. Use an Online HTML Entities Converter Tool

Sometimes, we have a lot of HTML code tags and we can’t quickly display those HTML tags as text because we have to write a lot of code. In that case, to do it quickly, we can use online tools that convert HTML tags to entities. So, that we can just copy-paste the code which will save time.

All you need to do is just put your HTML code containing tags that you want to display as plain text and the tool will convert all reserved characters in your code with HTML entities in a second.

The great thing about these tools is that these tools also work for all other web and programming languages like JavaScript, CSS, PHP, etc.

Some of the most popular tools to show HTML tags as text that I use mostly for myself are the following.

1. Syntax Highlighter by Hohli

This tool is pretty straightforward and simple to use. All you have to do after landing on the homepage is paste your HTML code and select the language like HTML and hit highlight as shown below.

This will generate HTML code that is converted to HTML entities.

Now, you just have to copy the resultant code as shown below in the image.

Then, paste this into your text editor and save. After that, refresh the webpage and see the output in your browser, it’s working.

But this tool highlights the code too. If you want the output simple without highlighting the code syntax then see the next tool below.

2. HTML Entity Converter by Online-Toolz

This tool simply converts reserved characters present in your HTML code tags to entities. And you can copy and use that code. The demonstration image is shown below.

There are so many other tools you can find online that convert reserved characters and display HTML tags as text. All those tools also work in the same way.

Now, let’s see the next method.

3. Use JavaScript Text Nodes

This method requires some knowledge of JavaScript. However, JavaScript provides us with a great solution to display HTML tags as text on a webpage.

All you have to do is just creating text nodes that contain HTML tags and display them on a webpage. Let’s see how.

The below JavaScript code example will create a text node that will contain HTML paragraph tags to display on a webpage.

body> p id="demo">p> script> var textNode = document.createTextNode("
This is paragraph
"); var x = document.getElementById('demo'); x.appendChild(textNode); script> body>

In the above code, first I used a document.createTextNode() method to create a text node. Then, I used JavaScript getElementById() method to access the element by its id to show the output inside the paragraph element. The output will look like this in your browser.

Code Output:

4. Other Solutions that are Deprecated

There was an HTML tag called that has been deprecated. So avoid using that in your code if you are running the latest version of HTML. This might cause errors and is not supported in modern browsers.

Lastly, it’s easy to use online tools to do the job quickly and effectively and tools save time. However, JavaScript is also good but you have to understand many things to get the job done.

That’s all. Now, you know all about displaying HTML tags as text. If you have any questions related to this tutorial then don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

Also, don’t forget to help friends by sharing this helpful tutorial!

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How to Display HTML Tags as Plain Text in HTML

You can show HTML tags as plain text in HTML on a website or webpage by replacing < with < or &60; and >with > or &62; on each HTML tag that you want to be visible.

Ordinarily, HTML tags are not visible to the reader on the browser. They are there but you cannot see them.

However, through HTML entities you can display the HTML tags that are part of the HTML markup code that are not visible on a browser.

Example
So if you want to display:

This is a paragraph

on the browser, you write it as: <p> This is a paragraph </p> .

How to Show HTML Tags: HTML Entities

HTML has some special characters that make up the language; they are the reserved character. The reserved characters in HTML are < , >, ” and ”. The browser will never display them since they have some meaning in HTML.

HTML entities are pieces of text used to display reserved characters, invisible characters(like space) and other non-keyboard characters.

Reserved characters in HTML

List of HTML entities

View the complete lists of HTML entities.

How to Quickly Replace Lots of < and >Fast

The quickest way to replace alot of <(less than) and >(greater than) signs is to use an online HTML tags to entities converter. You copy and paste your HTML code, convert it and copy the resulting text.

Another method you can use is the search and replace feature available in all text editors. In my case, I am using Sublime Text editor.

Yes. Previously, HTML tag was used to show HTML tags on a webpage.

However, the plaintext HTML tag is deprecated since HTML version 2. That means they were remove from the official HTML language and may not work as expected. My advice: don’t use the HTML tag.

How Do I Display HTML Tags as Text in PHP?

If you want to use PHP to show HTML tags as text, then, you can use the function htmlspecialchars() to escape < and >characters.

 htmlspecialchars('This shows HTML tags') 

Now go out there and share the code. If you have any question in HTML, ask in the comments below.

Hi there! I am Avic Ndugu.

I have published 100+ blog posts on HTML, CSS, Javascript, React and other related topics. When I am not writing, I enjoy reading, hiking and listening to podcasts.

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Display HTML Code As Text (Simple Examples)

Welcome to a tutorial on how to display HTML code as text. Want to add an HTML code snippet to your website? But the automatically gets parsed as a part of the webpage?

To display HTML code as text, simply replace < with < , and >with > . For example:

There are many online HTML entity converters that you can use to do this automatically.

That covers the quick basics, but read on if you need more tips and examples!

ⓘ I have included a zip file with all the source code at the start of this tutorial, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything… Or if you just want to dive straight in.

TLDR – QUICK SLIDES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DOWNLOAD & NOTES

Firstly, here is the download link to the example code as promised.

QUICK NOTES

If you spot a bug, feel free to comment below. I try to answer short questions too, but it is one person versus the entire world… If you need answers urgently, please check out my list of websites to get help with programming.

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here to download all the example source code, I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

DISPLAY HTML AS TEXT

All right, let us now get into the examples to display HTML code as text on a webpage.

EXAMPLE 1) INLINE HTML CODE

 code < padding: 3px; border: 1px solid #dfe22b; background: #fffb89; >* 
The <strong> tag is not to be used to bold text. It actually has a semantic meaning of "strong emphasis".
 

The tag is not to be used to bold text.
It actually has a semantic meaning of “strong emphasis”.

• < > are called “HTML entities”. In particular, < represents “lesser than” and > for “greater than”.
• There are a ton of other “HTML entity characters”, such as & for ampersand. I will leave a link below to a more complete list.
• Lastly, wrapping your HTML code in is optional. Well, it is easier to add cosmetics this way, and it also gives a “this is computer code” semantic hint to search engines.

EXAMPLE 2) HTML CODE SNIPPET

 pre < color: #fff; background: #384669; >* 
<ul> <li>First</li> <li>Second</li> <li>Third</li> </ul>
 
 
If you want to display a snippet, just wrap it in a pair of . That is, preformatted text will retain all the spaces and line breaks… So you don’t have to do crazy manual 
and   .
 
Reminder – It is a pain to manually change all the tags to HTML entities. Just do a search for “online HTML entity encode“, and there are plenty of free tools online.
 
EXTRA BITS & LINKS
 
That’s all for the tutorial, and here is a small section on some extras and links that may be useful to you.
 
EXTRA) CODE HIGHLIGHTERS
 
LINKS & REFERENCES
 
INFOGRAPHIC CHEAT SHEET
 
 
THE END
 
Thank you for reading, and we have come to the end. I hope that it has helped you to better understand, and if you want to share anything with this guide, please feel free to comment below. Good luck and happy coding!
 
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