HTML and especially PHP documents may be saved in either Unicode of ASCII. Sometimes, ASCII is preferred. This program converts the special characters that ASCII cannot save between Unicode and HTML Numeric Character Reference format.

How it works: when converting from ASCII to Unicode, the program replaces all numeric character references over 255 to unicode. When converting Unicode to ASCII, the program replaces all unicode characters past code point 255 to HTML numeric character references of the form: { where 123 is the code point of the number.

How to use: paste your document into the appropriate document window (ASCII or Unicode) using the "Paste" button, click one of the two buttons between the two document windows to convert to the other format, and click "Copy" above the window of the newly created text to copy it to the clipboard.

To clear both windows of text, click the button near the bottom with an empty paper icon on it.

You can also load and save the files using the load and save buttons between the two text windows. When saving text from the ASCII window, the text will be saved in ASCII format. When saving text from the Unicode window, the text will be saved in...UTF-8, obviously. 

Features: when copying text from the ASCII window, the text is copied to the clipboard in ASCII format. When copying from the Unicode window, it is copied in Unicode format. 

Note: yes, the name of this program is a misnomer. An HTML Character Entity is a named reference, for example &lt; (which becomes <). This program actually converts Unicode characters to HTML Numeric Character References. But who's gona download a program called Unicode2HTMLNumericCharacterReference!?

Good luck!