Developer Tools
Beautify HTML
HTML Beautifier for cleaning, converting, or preparing HTML snippets.
Direct Answer
Use the HTML Beautifier when markup is minified, generated by a CMS or framework, or pasted from view-source and needs proper indentation to read and review. It adds line breaks and nesting so you can trace which tags wrap which content before editing or debugging.
Reading Minified or Generated HTML
A lot of HTML you need to inspect was never written by a human in the first place, so it was never formatted for reading.
- Paste raw HTML copied from view-source or a dev tools panel to restore readable nesting.
- Framework and CMS output is often generated without any formatting at all.
- Beautifying helps you trace which closing tag matches which opening tag in deeply nested markup.
- It is a reading and review aid, not a markup validator.
What Beautifying Does Not Touch
A correct beautifier is careful about a few specific parts of HTML where whitespace is not just cosmetic.
- Content inside pre and textarea elements stays exactly as written, since its whitespace is visible output.
- Embedded template syntax is not understood as HTML and may confuse indentation nearby.
- Broken or unclosed tags are not fixed; the parser just makes its best guess at nesting.
- Legacy conditional comments for old versions of Internet Explorer should stay intact rather than reformatted.
How to Use HTML Beautifier
- Paste or type your content into the input box.
- The transformed result appears instantly in the result panel below.
- Click Copy result to copy the output to your clipboard.
- Download .txt saves the transformed text as a file.
- Reset clears everything and lets you start over.
Reference
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Transform pasted text into a cleaner or different format. |
| Input | Text, lines, lists, or copied content. |
| Result | Transformed text ready to copy or download. |
| Best for | Cleanup, formatting, list preparation, and copy-paste workflows. |
| Category | Developer Tools |
| Works on | Desktop, tablet, and mobile browsers |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does beautifying change the whitespace inside my pre tag?
A good beautifier should leave pre and textarea content untouched because whitespace inside them is rendered exactly as written and is part of the visible output. If you see reformatting happening there, the tool is treating it like ordinary markup instead of a whitespace-sensitive element, which can visibly break code samples or preformatted text.
Does beautifying reformat inline script and style blocks too?
It depends on the tool; a thorough beautifier detects embedded JavaScript and CSS inside script and style tags and indents them using their own language's rules, separately from the surrounding HTML indentation, rather than leaving them as one unbroken line inside the tag.
Will beautifying break HTML conditional comments for old Internet Explorer?
Conditional comments depend on exact comment syntax, and a naive beautifier that reformats comment content or adds whitespace inside the brackets can break the conditional parsing. This is mostly a legacy concern today, but it is worth checking if you are touching an older template that still targets old IE versions.
Why do self-closing void tags sometimes lose the trailing slash after beautifying?
Void elements like img, br, hr, input, and meta never actually have closing tags in HTML, so the trailing slash some people add is optional XHTML-style syntax that HTML5 parsers ignore either way. A beautifier may normalize it in either direction, and this does not change how a browser renders the page.
How do I read a minified HTML page from view-source?
Copy the raw HTML from view-source or the Elements panel in dev tools, paste it into the beautifier, and it reinserts line breaks and indentation so you can see the actual nesting instead of one unreadable line of markup.
Does beautifying fix broken or unclosed tags?
No, beautifying only reformats valid, well-nested HTML; if a tag is genuinely unclosed or improperly nested, the output may look strange or the indentation may drift, since the tool is guessing at structure the same way a browser's parser would. Validate the markup separately if you suspect a tag is actually broken rather than just unformatted.
Why does beautified HTML look odd around template syntax like double curly braces or template tags?
Templating syntax from engines like Handlebars, EJS, or Blade is not HTML, so a beautifier that does not understand your specific template language may misjudge nesting around those tags, since it is parsing based on angle-bracket tags, not the template engine's own logic.
Is there a standard indentation size for HTML?
There is no official standard; two spaces and four spaces are both common conventions across different projects and style guides. Pick one and stay consistent within a project, since mixed indentation is one of the most common nitpicks in code review.