1W3M(1) General Commands Manual W3M(1)
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6 w3m - a text based web browser and pager
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9 w3m [OPTION]... [ file | URL ]...
10
12 w3m is a text based browser which can display local or remote web pages
13 as well as other documents. It is able to process HTML tables and
14 frames but it ignores JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets. w3m can
15 also serve as a pager for text files named as arguments or passed on
16 standard input, and as a general purpose directory browser.
17 w3m organizes its content in buffers or tabs, allowing easy navigation
19 between them. With the w3m-img extension installed, w3m can display
20 inline graphics in web pages. And whenever w3m's HTML rendering capa‐
21 bilities do not meet your needs, the target URL can be handed over to a
22 graphical browser with a single command.
23 For help with runtime options, press “H” while running w3m.
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28 When given one or more command line arguments, w3m will handle targets
29 according to content type. For web, w3m gets this information from HTTP
30 headers; for relative or absolute file system paths, it relies on file‐
31 names.
32 With no argument, w3m expects data from standard input and assumes
34 “text/plain” unless another MIME type is given by the user.
35 If provided with no target and no fallback target (see for instance
37 option -v below), w3m will exit with usage information.
38
40 Command line options are introduced with a single “-” character and may
41 take an argument.
42 General options
44 -B with no other target defined, use the bookmark page for startup
45 -M monochrome display
47 -no-mouse
49 deactivate mouse support
50 -num display each line's number
52 -N distribute multiple command line arguments to tabs. By default,
54 a stack of buffers is used
55 -ppc num
57 width of num pixels per character. Range of 4.0 to 32.0, default
58 8.0. Larger values will make tables narrower. (Implementation
59 not verified)
60 -ppl num
62 height of num pixels per line. Range of 4.0 to 64.0. (Implemen‐
63 tation not verified)
64 -title, -title=TERM
66 use the buffer name as terminal title string. With specified
67 TERM, this sets the title configuration style accordingly
68 -v with no other target defined, welcome users with a built-in page
70 -W toggle wrapping mode in searches
72 -X do not initialize/deinitialize the terminal
74 +num go to line num; only effective for num larger than the number of
76 lines in the terminal
77 Browser options
79 -cols num
80 with stdout as destination; HTML is rendered to lines of num
81 characters
82 -cookie, -no-cookie
84 use stored cookies and accept new ones, or do neither
85 -F render frames
87 -graph, -no-graph
89 use or do not use graphic characters for drawing HTML table and
90 frame borders
91 -header string
93 append string to the HTTP(S) request. Expected to match the
94 header syntax Variable: Value
95 -m Render the body of Usenet messages according to the header “Con‐
97 tent-type”
98 -no-proxy
100 do not use proxy
101 -post file
103 use POST method to upload data defined in file. The syntax to be
104 used is var1=value1[&var2=value2]...
105 -4 IPv4 only. Corresponds to dns_order=4 in configuration files
107 -6 IPv6 only. Corresponds to dns_order=6 in configuration files
109 Text pager options
111 -l num number of lines preserved internally when receiving plain text
112 from stdin (default 10,000)
113 -r use caret notation to display special escape characters (such as
115 ANSI escapes or nroff-style backspaces for bold and underlined
116 characters) instead of processing them
117 -s squeeze multiple blank lines into one
119 -t num set tab width to num columns. No effect on stdout
121 Data type/encoding options
123 -I charset
124 user defined character encoding of input data
125 -O charset
127 user defined character encoding of output data
128 -T type
130 explicit characterization of input data by MIME type
131 Options for data output, followed by immediate exit
133 -dump dump rendered page into stdout. Set implicitly when output is
134 directed to a file or pipe
135 -dump_source
137 dump the page's source code into stdout
138 -dump_head
140 dump response of a HEAD request for a URL into stdout
141 -dump_both
143 dump HEAD, and source code for a URL into stdout
144 -dump_extra
146 dump HEAD, source code, and extra information for a URL into
147 stdout
148 -help show a summary of compiled-in features and command line options
150 -show-option
152 show all available configuration options
153 -version
155 show the version of w3m
156 Options for overriding default settings and resources
158 -bookmark file
159 use file instead of the default bookmark.html file
160 -config file
162 use file instead of the default configuration file
163 -debug DO NOT USE
165 -o option=value
167 modify one configuration item with an explicitly given value;
168 without option=value, equivalent to -show-option
169 -reqlog
171 log headers of HTTP communication in file ~/.w3m/request.log
172
174 Pager-like usage
175 Combine snippets of HTML code and preview the page
176 $ cat header.html footer.html | w3m -T text/html
177 Compare two files using tabs
179 $ w3m -N config.old config
180 Browser-like usage
182 Display web content in monochrome terminal
183 $ w3m -M http://w3m.sourceforge.net
184 Display embedded graphics
186 $ w3m -o auto_image=TRUE http://w3m.sourceforge.net
187 Display content from Usenet
189 $ w3m -m nntp://news.aioe.org/comp.os.linux.networking
190 Upload data for a URL using the POST method
192 $ w3m -post - http://example.com/form.php <<<'a=0&b=1'
193 Filter-like usage
195 Convert an HTML file to plain text with a defined line length
196 $ w3m -cols 40 foo.html > foo.txt
197 Output the bookmarks page as text with an appended list of links
199 $ w3m -B -o display_link_number=1 > out.txt
200 Conversion of file format and character encoding
202 $ w3m -T text/html -I EUC-JP -O UTF-8 < foo.html > foo.txt
203 Start with no input
205 Welcome users with a built-in page
206 $ w3m -v
207
209 w3m recognises the environment variable WWW_HOME as defining a fallback
210 target for use if it is invoked without one.
211
213 ~/.w3m/bookmark.html
214 default bookmark file
215 ~/.w3m/config
217 user defined configuration file; overrides /etc/w3m/config
218 ~/.w3m/cookie
220 cookie jar; written on exit, read on launch
221 ~/.w3m/history
223 browser history - visited files and URLs
224 ~/.w3m/keymap
226 user defined key bindings; overrides default key bindings
227 ~/.w3m/mailcap
229 external viewer configuration file
230 ~/.w3m/menu
232 user defined menu; overrides default menu
233 ~/.w3m/mime.types
235 MIME types file
236 ~/.w3m/mouse
238 user defined mouse settings
239 ~/.w3m/passwd
241 password and username file
242 ~/.w3m/pre_form
244 contains predefined values to fill recurrent HTML forms
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247 README and example files are to be found in the doc directory of your
248 w3m installation. Recent information about w3m may be found on the
249 project's web pages at ⟨http://w3m.sourceforge.net⟩
250
252 w3m has incorporated code from several sources. Users have contributed
253 patches and suggestions over time.
254
256 Akinori ITO ⟨aito@fw.ipsj.or.jp⟩
257w3m 0.5.3 2016-08-06 W3M(1)