1html2text(1) General Commands Manual html2text(1)
2
6 html2text - an advanced HTML-to-text converter
7
9 html2text -help
10 html2text -version
11 html2text [ -unparse | -check ] [ -debug-scanner ] [ -debug-parser ] [
12 -rcfile path ] [ -style ( compact | pretty ) ] [ -width width ] [ -o
13 output-file ] [ -nobs ] [ -ascii ] [ input-url ... ]
14
16 html2text reads HTML documents from the input-urls, formats each of
17 them into a stream of plain text characters, and writes the result to
18 standard output (or into output-file, if the -o command line option is
19 used).
20 Documents that are specified by a URL (RFC 1738) that begins with
22 "http:" are retrieved with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (RFC 1945).
23 URLs that begin with "file:" and URLs that do not contain a colon spec‐
24 ify local files. All other URLs are invalid.
25 If no input-urls are specified on the command line, html2text reads
27 from standard input. A dash as the input-url is an alternate way to
28 specify standard input.
29 html2text understands all HTML 3.2 constructs, but can render only part
31 of them due to the limitations of the text output format. However, the
32 program attempts to provide good substitutes for the elements it cannot
33 render. html2text parses HTML 4 input, too, but not always as success‐
34 ful as other HTML processors. It also accepts syntactically incorrect
35 input, and attempts to interpret it "reasonably".
36 The way html2text formats the HTML documents is controlled by format‐
38 ting properties read from an RC file. html2text attempts to read
39 $HOME/.html2textrc (or the file specified by the -rcfile command line
40 option); if that file cannot be read, html2text attempts to read
41 /etc/html2textrc. If no RC file can be read (or if the RC file does
42 not override all formatting properties), then "reasonable" defaults are
43 assumed. The RC file format is described in the html2textrc(5) manual
44 page.
45
47 -ascii By default, html2text uses ISO 8859-1 for the output. Specifying
48 this option, plain ASCII is used instead. To find out how
49 non-ASCII characters are rendered, refer to the file "ascii.sub‐
50 stitutes".
51 -check This option is for diagnostic purposes: The HTML document is
53 only parsed and not processed otherwise. In this mode of opera‐
54 tion, html2text will report on parse errors and scan errors,
55 which it does not in other modes of operation. Note that parse
56 and scan errors are not fatal for html2text, but may cause mis-
57 interpretation of the HTML code and/or portions of the document
58 being swallowed.
59 -debug-parser
61 Let html2text report on the tokens being shifted, rules being
62 applied, etc., while scanning the HTML document. This option is
63 for diagnostic purposes.
64 -debug-scanner
66 Let html2text report on each lexical token scanned, while scan‐
67 ning the HTML document. This option is for diagnostic purposes.
68 -help Print command line summary and exit.
70 -nobs By default, html2text renders underlined letters with sequences
72 like "underscore-backspace-character" and boldface letters like
73 "character-backspace-character", which works fine when the out‐
74 put is piped into more(1), less(1), or similar. For other appli‐
75 cations, or when redirecting the output into a file, it may be
76 desirable not to render character attributes with such backspace
77 sequences, which can be accomplished with this command line
78 option.
79 -o output-file
81 Write the output to output-file instead of standard output. A
82 dash as the output-file is an alternate way to specify the stan‐
83 dard output.
84 -rcfile path
86 Attempt to read the file specified in path as RC file.
87 -style ( compact | pretty )
89 Style pretty changes some of the default values of the format‐
90 ting parameters documented in html2textrc(5). To find out which
91 and how the formatting parameter defaults are changed, check the
92 file "pretty.style". If this option is omitted, style compact is
93 assumed as default.
94 -unparse
96 This option is for diagnostic purposes: Instead of formatting
97 the parsed document, generate HTML code, that is guaranteed to
98 be syntactically correct. If html2text has problems parsing a
99 syntactically incorrect HTML document, this option may help you
100 to understand what html2text thinks that the original HTML code
101 means.
102 -version
104 Print program version and exit.
105 -width width
107 By default, html2text formats the HTML documents for a screen
108 width of 79 characters. If redirecting the output into a file,
109 or if your terminal has a width other than 80 characters, or if
110 you just want to get an idea how html2text deals with large
111 tables and different terminal widths, you may want to specify a
112 different width.
113
115 /etc/html2textrc
116 System wide parser configuration file.
117 $HOME/.html2textrc
119 Personal parser configuration file, overrides the system wide
120 values.
121
123 HTML 3.2 (HTML 3.2 Reference Specification - http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
124 html32),
125 RFC 1945 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP).
126
128 html2text provides only a basic implementation of the Hypertext Trans‐
129 fer Protocol (HTTP). It requires the complete and exactly matching URL
130 to be given as argument and will not follow redirections (HTTP 301/
131 307).
132 html2text was written to convert HTML 3.2 documents. When using it with
134 HTML 4 or even XHTML 1 documents, some constructs present only in these
135 HTML versions might not be rendered.
136
138 html2text was written up to version 1.2.2 by Arno Unkrig
139 <arno@unkrig.de> for GMRS Software GmbH, Unterschleissheim.
140 Current maintainer and primary download location is:
142 Martin Bayer <mbayer@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
143 http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~mbayer/tools/html2text.html ⟨⟩
144
146 html2textrc(5), less(1), more(1)
147 2004-01-14 html2text(1)