Provided by: html2text_1.3.2a-21_amd64 bug

NAME

       html2text - an advanced HTML-to-text converter

SYNOPSIS

       html2text -help
       html2text -version
       html2text  [  -unparse  | -check ] [ -debug-scanner ] [ -debug-parser ] [ -rcfile path ] [
       -style ( compact | pretty ) ] [ -width width ] [ -o output-file ] [ -nobs  ]  [  -ascii  |
       -utf8 ] [ -nometa ] [ input-file ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       html2text reads HTML documents from the input-files, formats each of them into a stream of
       plain text characters, and writes the result to standard output (or into  output-file,  if
       the -o command line option is used).

       If  no input-files are specified on the command line, html2text reads from standard input.
       A dash as the input-file is an alternate way to specify standard input.

       html2text understands all HTML 3.2 constructs, but can render only part of them due to the
       limitations  of  the  text  output  format.  However, the program attempts to provide good
       substitutes for the elements it cannot render.  html2text parses HTML 4  input,  too,  but
       not always as successful as other HTML processors. It also accepts syntactically incorrect
       input, and attempts to interpret it "reasonably".

       The way html2text formats the HTML documents is controlled by formatting  properties  read
       from  an RC file.  html2text attempts to read $HOME/.html2textrc (or the file specified by
       the -rcfile command line option); if that file cannot be read, html2text attempts to  read
       /etc/html2textrc.   If  no  RC  file  can be read (or if the RC file does not override all
       formatting properties), then "reasonable" defaults are assumed.  The  RC  file  format  is
       described in the html2textrc(5) manual page.

       Debian   version   of   html2text   also   can   do   input   and   output  recoding  (see
       /usr/share/doc/html2text/README.Debian for more info).  html2text tries to fetch  encoding
       from  HTML  document.  If encoding is not specified, you can use -ascii and -utf8 options.
       Output is converted to user's locale charset (LC_CTYPE).

OPTIONS

       -nometa
              By default, Debian version  of  html2text  use  'meta  http-equiv'  tag  for  input
              recoding. This option cancels this behavior.

       -ascii By  default,  when  -nometa  is  supplied,  html2text  uses  UTF-8  for the output.
              Specifying this option, plain ASCII is used instead.  To  find  out  how  non-ASCII
              characters are rendered, refer to the file "ascii.substitutes".

       -utf8  By  default,  when  -nometa  is  supplied, html2text uses ISO 8859-1 for the input.
              Specifying this option, UTF-8 is used instead (both for  input  and  output).  This
              option implies -nobs.

       -check This  option  is  for diagnostic purposes: The HTML document is only parsed and not
              processed otherwise. In this mode of operation,  html2text  will  report  on  parse
              errors  and  scan  errors, which it does not in other modes of operation. Note that
              parse and scan errors are not fatal for html2text, but may cause mis-interpretation
              of the HTML code and/or portions of the document being swallowed.

       -debug-parser
              Let  html2text report on the tokens being shifted, rules being applied, etc., while
              scanning the HTML document. This option is for diagnostic purposes.

       -debug-scanner
              Let html2text report on  each  lexical  token  scanned,  while  scanning  the  HTML
              document. This option is for diagnostic purposes.

       -help  Print command line summary and exit.

       -nobs  By  default,  original  html2text  renders  underlined  letters with sequences like
              "underscore-backspace-character" and boldface  letters  like  "character-backspace-
              character".  Because  of  issues  with  UTF-8,  Debian version of html2text doesn't
              produce backspaces, so this option really does nothing.

       -o output-file
              Write the output  to  output-file  instead  of  standard  output.  A  dash  as  the
              output-file is an alternate way to specify the standard output.

       -rcfile path
              Attempt to read the file specified in path as RC file.

       -style ( compact | pretty )
              Style  pretty  changes  some  of  the  default  values of the formatting parameters
              documented in html2textrc(5).  To find out which and how the  formatting  parameter
              defaults  are  changed,  check  the file "pretty.style". If this option is omitted,
              style compact is assumed as default.

       -unparse
              This option is for diagnostic purposes: Instead of formatting the parsed  document,
              generate  HTML  code,  that is guaranteed to be syntactically correct. If html2text
              has problems parsing a syntactically incorrect HTML document, this option may  help
              you to understand what html2text thinks that the original HTML code means.

       -version
              Print program version and exit.

       -width width
              By  default,  html2text  formats  the  HTML  documents  for  a  screen  width of 79
              characters. If redirecting the output into a file, or if your terminal has a  width
              other  than  80  characters, or if you just want to get an idea how html2text deals
              with large tables and  different  terminal  widths,  you  may  want  to  specify  a
              different width.

FILES

       /etc/html2textrc
              System wide parser configuration file.

       $HOME/.html2textrc
              Personal parser configuration file, overrides the system wide values.

CONFORMING TO

       HTML 3.2 (HTML 3.2 Reference Specification - http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32),

RESTRICTIONS

       Debian version of html2text have no http support. Use html2text through pipes with curl or
       wget instead. See README.Debian for more information.

       html2text was written to convert HTML 3.2 documents. When using it with  HTML  4  or  even
       XHTML  1  documents,  some  constructs  present  only  in these HTML versions might not be
       rendered.

AUTHOR

       html2text was written up to  version  1.2.2  by  Arno  Unkrig  <arno@unkrig.de>  for  GMRS
       Software GmbH, Unterschleissheim.

       Current maintainer and primary download location is:
       Martin Bayer <mail@mbayer.de>
       http://www.mbayer.de/html2text/files.shtml

       This man page was modified for Debian by Eugene V. Lyubimkin <jackyf.devel@gmail.com> ⟨⟩

SEE ALSO

       html2textrc(5), less(1), more(1)

                                            2008-09-20                               html2text(1)