HTML Formatter - HTML Beautifier / Minifier
HTML Formatter is a free, browser-based tool for cleaning up and standardising HTML markup. Paste in anything - minified production output, hand-written templates, or a snippet copied from DevTools - and get back consistently formatted HTML in one click.
The formatter correctly handles inline vs block elements, void elements (<br>, <img>, <input>, etc.), embedded <style> and <script> blocks, preserves <pre> and <textarea> content verbatim, and never adds spurious whitespace inside inline contexts. Everything runs locally in your browser - your code never leaves your machine.
Input HTML - 0 chars
Output - Inline - 0 chars
About HTML beautifier / minifier
Online HTML beautifier and minifier are tools used in web development to format and optimize HTML code. They serve different purposes:
HTML Beautifier:
- An HTML beautifier is a tool that takes your HTML code and formats it in a more readable and organized way. It adds indentation, line breaks, and consistent spacing to make the code easier for developers to understand.
- Beautifying HTML code is primarily for human readability and does not affect how the web page functions. It's especially useful when working on larger projects or collaborating with other developers to maintain clean and well-organized code.
HTML Minifier:
- An HTML minifier is a tool that optimizes your HTML code for production use. It removes unnecessary characters, such as whitespace, line breaks, and comments, to reduce the size of the HTML file.
- Minifying HTML is done to improve website performance by reducing load times. Smaller HTML files can be transmitted more quickly over the internet, which can lead to faster page rendering for users.
HTML beautifiers and minifiers are often used in web development workflows to balance readability during development and performance in production.
What this tool does - and how
The formatter is built around a custom HTML tokeniser written entirely in JavaScript. It builds a token stream that correctly handles quoted attribute values, self-closing tags, void elements, comment nodes, and raw-text elements like <script>, <style>, <pre>, and <textarea> - whose contents are preserved verbatim without any whitespace modification.
The three formatting modes each serve a distinct use case:
| Mode | Output style | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Beautify | Fully indented, one tag per line. Inline elements are kept inline when possible. Void elements respected. Pre/textarea/script/style contents preserved. | Code review, editing, version control diffs, learning. |
| Inline | Elements whose content is only text and inline elements are collapsed onto a single line: <h3>Title</h3>. Block elements with nested children stay expanded and indented. |
Cleaner diffs, readable templates, reducing vertical noise without losing structure. |
| Minify | All unnecessary whitespace stripped. Comments optionally removed. Smallest possible output. | Production deployment, reducing payload size. |
Features
- Void Elements
- Correctly handles
<br>,<img>,<input>,<meta>,<link>, and all other void elements - never adds a spurious closing tag. - Verbatim Blocks
<pre>,<textarea>,<script>, and<style>contents are never reformatted - whitespace is preserved exactly as written.- Attribute Sorting
- Optionally sort all attributes alphabetically within each tag for a consistent, predictable attribute order across your markup.
- Wrap Attributes
- When tags have multiple attributes, optionally place each attribute on its own line for maximum readability - useful for long or complex tags.
- Self-closing Voids
- Optionally output void elements in XHTML style with a self-closing slash -
<br />instead of<br>- for XML-compatible markup. - Browser Only
- Everything runs in your browser. No server, no account, no analytics. Your HTML code never leaves your machine.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an HTML formatter?
An HTML formatter is a tool that automatically re-styles raw HTML markup to make it easier to read and maintain. It adds consistent indentation and line breaks - turning minified or hand-written HTML into clean, standardised code without changing how the page renders in a browser.
What is the difference between Beautify, Inline, and Minify?
Beautify expands HTML into fully indented, human-readable markup with each tag on its own line. Inline mode collapses simple elements - those containing only text and inline children - onto a single line (e.g. <h3>Title</h3>), while keeping block structure expanded. Minify strips all unnecessary whitespace and optionally removes comments for the smallest possible output.
Will formatting change how my page renders?
In most cases, no. Beautify and Inline only change whitespace between tags. However, whitespace between inline elements (like <span> or <a>) can sometimes affect rendering - for example, adding a small gap between two adjacent inline elements. The formatter tries to minimise this by detecting inline contexts.
Does the formatter preserve <pre> and <script> contents?
The contents of <pre> and <textarea> are preserved verbatim. <style> blocks are formatted using the built-in CSS engine. Inline <script> blocks are formatted using js-beautify - external scripts (with a src attribute) and non-JS types like application/json are left untouched.
What does "Self-close void elements" do?
When enabled, void elements like <br>, <img>, and <input> are output with an explicit self-closing slash: <br />. This is useful when writing HTML that must also be valid XML (XHTML). It has no effect on standard HTML5 rendering.
Is my HTML sent to a server?
No. All formatting is performed entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your HTML code is never transmitted to any server, stored, or logged. The tool works fully offline once the page has loaded.