✳ OMNIVIEWER

Drop an HTML file. Any size.

safe · secure · no server · works offline · fast

…or just start typing at the cursor.

↓ scroll for about & FAQ

View and format HTML online — without uploading it

OmniViewer opens an HTML file right in your browser. Drop an .html file and you get a beautified, syntax‑highlighted view plus a small toolkit: a minifier, an HTML‑to‑JSON DOM converter, a stats report, and the raw and hex views. There is no upload and no server — the markup is read directly by your browser, and the heavy work runs in a background Web Worker so the page never freezes. The raw and hex views read only the bytes needed to paint the screen, so even a huge document opens instantly and privately.

What each tab does, in plain terms

A little HTML history

HTML — HyperText Markup Language — was proposed by Tim Berners‑Lee at CERN in 1991 as the document format of the World Wide Web. It is maintained today as a living standard by the WHATWG, having earlier passed through W3C recommendations (HTML 4.01 in 1999, XHTML, and HTML5 in 2014). An HTML document is a tree of nested elements — tags with attributes and text — which is exactly what OmniViewer’s JSON tab makes visible.

A tiny example of HTML:

<a href="https://omniviewer.org/">Open any file</a>

How HTML compares to XML, Markdown and JSON

AspectHTMLXMLMarkdownJSON
ShapeNested elements & attributesNested elements & attributesPlain text with light syntaxNested objects & arrays
Primary useWeb documentsData & documentsWriting proseAPIs & config
StrictnessLenient, error-tolerantStrict, well-formedLenientStrict
StandardWHATWG living standardW3C XMLCommonMarkRFC 8259 / ECMA-404

OmniViewer opens every file format; HTML is one of the formats with dedicated tooling, powered by the same viewing engine as fastjsonviewer.com and hugecsv.com.

FAQ

Is my HTML file uploaded anywhere?

No. OmniViewer is a static page with no server-side processing: your .html file is read directly by your browser, and every tab — formatting, minify, JSON and stats — runs locally in a Web Worker. The file never leaves your computer.

How large an HTML file can I open?

The raw and hex views are windowed — they read only the bytes needed to paint the screen — so they open files of effectively unlimited size, up to 20 GB and beyond; the engine behind them has been tested in-browser with a 40 GB file. The formatted view and the whole-file tools (minify, JSON, stats) transform the file in memory, so on very large files they work on a bounded prefix and tell you when they do.

What is the difference between the Formatted and Compressed tabs?

Formatted beautifies the markup for reading — one element per line, re-indented and syntax-highlighted. Compressed does the opposite: it strips comments and collapses whitespace to minify the file, and reports the before/after size and the percentage saved.

Can I convert HTML to JSON?

Yes. The JSON tab parses the document into a JSON DOM tree — every element with its attributes and text as nested objects — syntax-highlighted and ready to copy or download. It is a structural conversion of the markup, not a data-scraping tool.

What standard defines HTML?

HTML is maintained as a living standard by the WHATWG. Earlier milestones include W3C HTML 4.01 (1999) and HTML5 (2014); XHTML reformulated HTML as strict XML. OmniViewer treats HTML, HTM and XHTML files with the same toolkit.

Who created HTML, and when?

Tim Berners-Lee proposed HTML at CERN in 1991 as the document format for the World Wide Web. It has evolved through several versions and is now a continuously updated living standard.