Ubuntu Manpage: html2text - an advanced HTML-to-text converter

NAME

       html2text - an advanced HTML-to-text converter

SYNOPSIS

       html2text -help
       html2text -version
       html2text  [ -check ] [ -debug-scanner ] [ -debug-parser ] [ -rcfile path ] [ -width width
       ] [ -o output-file ] [ -nobs ] [ -from_encoding encoding ] [  -to_encoding  encoding  ]  [
       -ascii ] [ -utf8 ] [ input-file ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       html2text reads HTML documents from the input-files, formats each of them into a stream of
       UTF-8 encoded 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.

OPTIONS

-ascii By default, html2text uses UTF-8 for its output. Specifying this option, plain
ASCII is used instead. Non-ASCII characters are rendered via iconv's
transliteration feature. As such this option is an alias for -to_encoding
ASCII//TRANSLIT.

-utf8 Assume both terminal and input stream are in UTF-8 mode. This is an alias for
-from_encoding UTF-8 -to_encoding UTF-8.

-from_encoding encoding
Sets the encoding of the input file or stream to the given encoding. By default,
html2text tries to obtain the encoding from the input file and uses ISO-8859-1
encoding as fallback. You might want to override the detection or fallback using
this option. See iconv -l for a list of supported encodings.

-to_encoding encoding
Use the given encoding while writing output, instead of UTF-8. The same set of
encodings as for the -from_encoding option can be used.

-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, html2text renders underlined letters with sequences like "underscore-
backspace-character" and boldface letters like "character-backspace-character",
which works fine when the output is piped into more(1), less(1), or similar. For
other applications, or when redirecting the output into a file, it may be desirable
not to render character attributes with such backspace sequences, which can be
accomplished with this command line option.

-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.

-links Tags all external links with a number between brackets ([num]), and produces a
numbered list at the end of the document with all link targets.

-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

       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.

       Up to version 1.3.2a, the maintainer was Martin Bayer <mbayer@zedat.fu-berlin.de>.

       This version of html2text comes from https://github.com/grobian/html2text.  Please use the
       GitHub page to file issues and improvements.