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 ]...
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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
30 HTTP headers; for relative or absolute file system paths, it relies on
31 filenames.
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 op‐
37 tion -v below), w3m will exit with usage information.
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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, de‐
58 fault 8.0. Larger values will make tables narrower. (Implemen‐
59 tation not verified)
60 -ppl num
62 height of num pixels per line. Range of 4.0 to 64.0. (Imple‐
63 mentation 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
104 be 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 -insecure
111 use insecure SSL config options, alias for -o ssl_ci‐
112 pher=ALL:eNULL:@SECLEVEL=0 -o ssl_min_version=all -o ssl_for‐
113 bid_method= -o ssl_verify_server=0
114 Text pager options
116 -l num number of lines preserved internally when receiving plain text
117 from stdin (default 10,000)
118 -r use caret notation to display special escape characters (such as
120 ANSI escapes or nroff-style backspaces for bold and underlined
121 characters) instead of processing them
122 -s squeeze multiple blank lines into one
124 -t num set tab width to num columns. No effect on stdout
126 Data type/encoding options
128 -I charset
129 user defined character encoding of input data
130 -O charset
132 user defined character encoding of output data
133 -T type
135 explicit characterization of input data by MIME type
136 Options for data output, followed by immediate exit
138 -dump dump rendered page into stdout. Set implicitly when output is
139 directed to a file or pipe
140 -dump_source
142 dump the page's source code into stdout
143 -dump_head
145 dump response of a HEAD request for a URL into stdout
146 -dump_both
148 dump HEAD, and source code for a URL into stdout
149 -dump_extra
151 dump HEAD, source code, and extra information for a URL into
152 stdout
153 -help show a summary of compiled-in features and command line options
155 -show-option
157 show all available configuration options
158 -version
160 show the version of w3m
161 Options for overriding default settings and resources
163 -bookmark file
164 use file instead of the default bookmark.html file
165 -config file
167 use file instead of the default configuration file
168 -o option=value
170 modify one configuration item with an explicitly given value;
171 without option=value, equivalent to -show-option
172 -debug use debug mode (only for debugging)
174 -reqlog
176 log headers of HTTP communication in file ~/.w3m/request.log
177
179 Pager-like usage
180 Combine snippets of HTML code and preview the page
181 $ cat header.html footer.html | w3m -T text/html
182 Compare two files using tabs
184 $ w3m -N config.old config
185 Browser-like usage
187 Display web content in monochrome terminal
188 $ w3m -M http://w3m.sourceforge.net
189 Display embedded graphics
191 $ w3m -o auto_image=TRUE http://w3m.sourceforge.net
192 Display content from Usenet
194 $ w3m -m nntp://news.aioe.org/comp.os.linux.networking
195 Upload data for a URL using the POST method
197 $ w3m -post - http://example.com/form.php <<<'a=0&b=1'
198 Filter-like usage
200 Convert an HTML file to plain text with a defined line length
201 $ w3m -cols 40 foo.html > foo.txt
202 Output the bookmarks page as text with an appended list of links
204 $ w3m -B -o display_link_number=1 > out.txt
205 Conversion of file format and character encoding
207 $ w3m -T text/html -I EUC-JP -O UTF-8 < foo.html > foo.txt
208 Start with no input
210 Welcome users with a built-in page
211 $ w3m -v
212
214 w3m recognises the environment variable WWW_HOME as defining a fallback
215 target for use if it is invoked without one.
216
218 ~/.w3m/bookmark.html
219 default bookmark file
220 ~/.w3m/config
222 user defined configuration file; overrides /etc/w3m/config
223 ~/.w3m/cookie
225 cookie jar; written on exit, read on launch
226 ~/.w3m/history
228 browser history - visited files and URLs
229 ~/.w3m/keymap
231 user defined key bindings; overrides default key bindings
232 ~/.w3m/mailcap
234 external viewer configuration file
235 ~/.w3m/menu
237 user defined menu; overrides default menu
238 ~/.w3m/mime.types
240 MIME types file
241 ~/.w3m/mouse
243 user defined mouse settings
244 ~/.w3m/passwd
246 password and username file
247 ~/.w3m/pre_form
249 contains predefined values to fill recurrent HTML forms
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252 README and example files are to be found in the doc directory of your
253 w3m installation. Recent information about w3m may be found on the
254 project's web pages at ⟨http://w3m.sourceforge.net⟩
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257 w3m has incorporated code from several sources. Users have contributed
258 patches and suggestions over time.
259
261 Akinori ITO ⟨aito@fw.ipsj.or.jp⟩
262w3m 0.5.3 2016-08-06 W3M(1)