HTML Prettifier
Format and indent HTML code for better readability. Fix messy HTML structure.
How to use
- 1 Paste your HTML markup into the input area.
- 2 The tool formats it with proper nesting and indentation automatically.
- 3 Review the prettified output in the result area.
- 4 Click Copy to use the formatted HTML in your editor or CMS.
Key features
- Reformats minified or messy HTML with proper nesting and indentation
- Preserves content inside <pre>, <script>, and <style> tags
- Works with partial HTML snippets and full page documents
- Instant result — no server-side processing
HTML Formatting and Minification
HTML formatting (or prettifying) takes compressed or poorly indented HTML and restructures it with consistent indentation and line breaks, making it much easier to read. Minifying does the reverse — it strips whitespace, comments, and optional closing tags to reduce file size before deployment.
Unlike CSS or JS, HTML minification requires care: whitespace between inline elements (<a>, <span>, <img>) can actually affect layout due to how browsers handle inline formatting contexts. Aggressive minification that removes that whitespace can shift elements visually.
Common Use Cases
Inspecting server-rendered HTML
Server-side templates (PHP, Blade, Twig, Django) often output unindented HTML. Format it to understand the DOM structure.
Scraping and parsing output
Beautify raw HTML fetched from a scraper or crawler to locate the specific elements and attributes you need to target.
Email template debugging
Email clients return heavily minified or inlined HTML. Format the output to debug rendering issues more easily.
Minify for production delivery
Strip whitespace from large HTML responses to reduce TTFB, especially for SSR apps not behind a CDN.
Auditing CMS output
WordPress, Drupal, and other CMSs can produce nested, deeply indented or compressed HTML — format it for review.
Cleaning copy-pasted markup
Code pasted from editors, design tools, or documentation often comes with inconsistent indentation. Format it before committing.
HTML-Specific Formatting Considerations
Formatting HTML has a few quirks that CSS or JSON don't have.
Inline whitespace matters
Whitespace between inline elements (span, a, strong, img) can affect rendering. Formatters that remove it may subtly shift layouts.
pre and textarea are whitespace-sensitive
Content inside <pre>, <textarea>, and <script> tags should never be re-indented by a formatter — it would corrupt the content.
Self-closing tags differ between HTML5 and XHTML
In HTML5, <br>, <img>, <input> don't need a closing slash. In XHTML they do (<br />). Formatters may adjust this based on mode.