Convert HTML to Plain Text Online Free
Drag & drop your .html file here, or click to browse
Converts to Plain Text on secure servers · first daily conversion free · no signup
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Extract raw text content from HTML files, stripping all markup tags, CSS styles, scripts, and embedded media. Powered by LibreOffice for clean text extraction that preserves paragraph structure.
By ChangeThisFile Team · Last updated: March 2026
ChangeThisFile converts your HTML file to Plain Text using LibreOffice on our secure servers, stripping all HTML tags, CSS styles, scripts, and embedded objects to extract only the readable text content. The output is a clean UTF-8 text file compatible with every operating system and text editor. Encrypted upload with automatic file deletion, completely free with no signup required.
HTML vs Plain Text: Format Comparison
Key differences between the two formats
| Feature | HTML | Plain Text |
|---|---|---|
| File format | Tagged markup (.html) | Unformatted text (.txt) |
| Content type | Structured with tags, attributes, and nesting | Raw characters only |
| Formatting | Rich (CSS, fonts, colors, layout) | None (plain characters only) |
| Images and media | Referenced or embedded | Not supported |
| File size | Larger (includes tags, styles, scripts) | Minimal (text content only) |
| Readability | Requires browser or HTML parser | Directly readable by any program |
| Machine processing | Requires HTML parser (BeautifulSoup, etc.) | Directly usable by grep, sed, awk, Python |
| Compatibility | Web browsers, HTML editors | Every text editor and OS ever made |
When to Convert
Common scenarios where this conversion is useful
Extracting text from web pages for data processing
Strip HTML markup to get clean text for feeding into search indexes, NLP pipelines, data analysis tools, or machine learning datasets.
Creating plain text versions of HTML emails
Generate a plain text fallback of HTML email content for email clients that don't render HTML, or for accessibility compliance.
Cleaning web scraping output
Convert scraped HTML pages to clean text, removing all tags, navigation elements, scripts, and styles to isolate the actual content.
Reducing file size for archival or transfer
An HTML file with CSS, scripts, and base64 images can be dramatically larger than the raw text it contains. Convert to TXT to store only the textual content.
Who Uses This Conversion
Tailored guidance for different workflows
Office Workers
- Convert HTML documents to Plain Text for sharing with colleagues who use different software
- Transform HTML reports to Plain Text for archiving or distribution to external stakeholders
Students
- Convert HTML lecture notes to Plain Text for submitting assignments in the required format
- Transform HTML study materials to Plain Text for reading on tablets or e-readers
Professionals
- Convert HTML contracts or proposals to Plain Text for secure, read-only distribution to clients
- Transform HTML templates to Plain Text for use across different office suites and platforms
How to Convert HTML to Plain Text
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1
Upload your HTML file
Drag and drop your .html file onto the converter, or click to browse. Files up to 50 MB are supported for free.
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2
Server-side conversion via LibreOffice
Your file is securely uploaded and processed on our servers using LibreOffice headless, which parses the HTML and extracts all readable text content while stripping tags, styles, and scripts. This typically takes 30-90 seconds.
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3
Download the result
Once extraction is complete, click Download to save your .txt file. The uploaded file is automatically deleted from our servers.
Convert HTML to Plain Text via API
Integrate this conversion into your pipeline with 3 lines of code. Free tier: 25 conversions/month.
curl -X POST https://changethisfile.com/v1/convert \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -F "file=@input.html" \ -F "target=txt" \ -o output.txt --fail
YOUR_API_KEY with your free key — no credit card needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, completely free. Convert HTML to TXT with no cost, no signup, and no watermarks.
Yes. All HTML tags, attributes, CSS styles, JavaScript, and comments are stripped. Only the visible text content is extracted.
Table content is extracted as text, but the tabular structure is lost. Cell contents may appear as tab-separated or space-separated text depending on the source layout.
Images, videos, iframes, and other embedded media are removed entirely. Alt text from images may or may not be included depending on the HTML structure.
The link text is preserved as plain text. The URLs themselves (href values) are stripped along with the anchor tags. You get the clickable text but not the destination URL.
No. Files are automatically deleted immediately after conversion. Nothing is stored or retained.
Yes. Files are transferred over encrypted HTTPS connections. Your data is protected in transit.
The conversion uses LibreOffice headless on our servers. LibreOffice parses the HTML through its import filter and exports the content as plain text (UTF-8 encoded).
The output is UTF-8 encoded plain text, compatible with virtually all modern text editors and programming tools.
Yes. Paragraph breaks from <p>, <br>, and heading tags are generally preserved as line breaks in the text output, maintaining the basic document structure.
Yes. Upload the HTML email file and the converter will extract only the readable text content, which you can use as a plain text email fallback.
Files up to 50 MB are supported for free conversion.
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