HTML Tag Stripper

The HTML Tag Stripper removes inline markup from a SubRip file, turning styled captions into clean plain text. Paste the subtitles into the SRT Content box and you get back a valid SRT, saveable as an .srt file, with every angle-bracket tag such as <i>, <b>, <u> and <font> deleted while the words, the line breaks and the timecodes stay exactly as they were.

Styling tags cause more trouble than they solve once a file leaves the editor that made it. Many hardware players ignore them, some print them on screen as literal text, translation tools count them as words and inflate the quote, and several platforms reject SRT containing markup. Localisation vendors preparing files for translation memory, broadcasters ingesting supplier subtitles and LMS teams all need a fast route back to plain text.

The stripper matches any run from an opening angle bracket to its closing bracket and deletes it, so opening and closing tags go, along with attributes such as a font colour, while the words inside survive untouched. Each cue is then trimmed, and a cue left with nothing but markup is dropped rather than written out as a blank flash. Output is renumbered sequentially with every timecode preserved.

The conversion runs completely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and large tracks clean in a fraction of a second.

• Removes every inline tag: Italics, bold, underline and font tags all go, including their closing partners, leaving only the readable words behind.
• Attributes handled too: A tag carrying attributes such as a colour or face value is matched and removed in full, not just its bare name.
• Wrapped words are kept: Only the markup is deleted; the dialogue that sat inside the tags is preserved character for character.
• Markup-only cues dropped: If stripping leaves a cue with no text at all, that cue is removed rather than written out as an empty entry that would flash on screen.
• Automatic trimming and renumbering: Each cue's text is trimmed of leftover whitespace and the finished file is numbered contiguously from 1.
• Timings never altered: Start and end timecodes pass through unchanged, so a stripped file drops straight into the same edit without a sync check.
• Single-field simplicity: The only control is the SRT Content textarea plus Run, and the built-in sample already contains italic tags so you can see the effect immediately.
• Private by design: The file is parsed and rewritten in the page with no server round trip.

1. Click Load sample to load a demonstration file that already contains italic markup into the SRT Content box.
2. Paste your own styled subtitle file into the SRT Content box, including all cue numbers and timing lines.
3. Press Run to strip the markup; the plain-text SRT appears in the output panel.
4. Scan the output to confirm the dialogue is complete and that no words were lost along with the tags.
5. Compare the final cue number with the original if you suspect the file contained tag-only cues, since those are removed and the file is renumbered.
6. Click Copy for the clipboard or Download to save the clean file as an .srt.
7. Upload or hand off the stripped file, and if you later need emphasis back use the HTML Tag Adder to reapply it consistently.

Example 1 - italics and colour removed before ingest. A supplier file used italics for narration and a font tag for a colour that the target platform does not support.

Before:
2
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,400
<i>He never spoke of it again.</i>
<font color="#ffff00">Not to anyone.</font>

After:
2
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,400
He never spoke of it again.
Not to anyone.

Both tag pairs and the colour attribute disappear, the two display lines are preserved, and the timing line is untouched.

Example 2 - a cue that was only markup. A cue whose entire body was <font color="#ffffff"></font> becomes empty after stripping, so it is removed from the output and the following cues are renumbered - which also spares you a separate empty-entry clean-up.

• Uploads that are accepted: Platforms and ingest systems that reject markup in SRT take the stripped file without complaint, avoiding a failed delivery.
• No tags rendered as visible text: Players that do not understand inline styling sometimes print the tags on screen, and stripping guarantees viewers never see that.
• Cheaper, cleaner translation: Translation memory and CAT tools count markup as content, so removing it first reduces word counts and prevents translators corrupting tags.
• Fewer validation errors: Plain text cues with no leftover empty entries pass subtitle validators that would otherwise flag both markup and blank cues.
• Instant across a whole file: Removing hundreds of scattered tags by hand invites mistakes; one pass does it deterministically and keeps every word.
• Client material stays private: Stripping happens in your browser, so supplier and pre-release subtitle files never travel to a server.