PHP's handy strip_tags( ) function removes HTML tags that look like <word...>, <word.../>, or </word>. However, it doesn't understand the tags it's removing. So We fixed it.

strip.php

<?php

/**
 * Remove HTML tags, including invisible text such as style and
 * script code, and embedded objects.  Add line breaks around
 * block-level tags to prevent word joining after tag removal.
 */
function strip_html_tags( $text )
{
    $text = preg_replace(
        array(
          // Remove invisible content
            '@<head[^>]*?>.*?</head>@siu',
            '@<style[^>]*?>.*?</style>@siu',
            '@<script[^>]*?.*?</script>@siu',
            '@<object[^>]*?.*?</object>@siu',
            '@<embed[^>]*?.*?</embed>@siu',
            '@<applet[^>]*?.*?</applet>@siu',
            '@<noframes[^>]*?.*?</noframes>@siu',
            '@<noscript[^>]*?.*?</noscript>@siu',
            '@<noembed[^>]*?.*?</noembed>@siu',
          // Add line breaks before and after blocks
            '@</?((address)|(blockquote)|(center)|(del))@iu',
            '@</?((div)|(h[1-9])|(ins)|(isindex)|(p)|(pre))@iu',
            '@</?((dir)|(dl)|(dt)|(dd)|(li)|(menu)|(ol)|(ul))@iu',
            '@</?((table)|(th)|(td)|(caption))@iu',
            '@</?((form)|(button)|(fieldset)|(legend)|(input))@iu',
            '@</?((label)|(select)|(optgroup)|(option)|(textarea))@iu',
            '@</?((frameset)|(frame)|(iframe))@iu',
        ),
        array(
            ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ',
            "\n\$0", "\n\$0", "\n\$0", "\n\$0", "\n\$0", "\n\$0",
            "\n\$0", "\n\$0",
        ),
        $text );
    return strip_tags( $text );
}