<?php $value = "<div>dies ist ein test</div><div>"; $dom = new DOMDocument(); @$dom->loadHTML('<?xml encoding="utf-8" ?>'.$value, LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD); // Fix the html errors $value = $dom->saveHtml($dom->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0)); // Remove body tag $value = mb_strimwidth($value, 6, mb_strwidth($value, 'UTF-8') - 13, '', 'UTF-8'); echo $value;