---
name: "HTML::FormatText::Links"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libhtml-formatexternal-perl"
version: "26-6"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/HTML::FormatText::Links"
---

# HTML::FormatText::Links(3pm)

format HTML as plain text using links

## NAME

HTML::FormatText::Links - format HTML as plain text using links

## SYNOPSIS

```
 use HTML::FormatText::Links;
 $text = HTML::FormatText::Links->format_file ($filename);
 $text = HTML::FormatText::Links->format_string ($html_string);
 $formatter = HTML::FormatText::Links->new (rightmargin => 60);
 $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder->new_from_file ($filename);
 $text = $formatter->format ($tree);
```

## DESCRIPTION

`"HTML::FormatText::Links"` turns HTML into plain text using the `"links"` program.

\<http://links.twibright.com/\>

The module interface is compatible with formatters like `"HTML::FormatText"`, but all parsing etc is done by links.  See `"HTML::FormatExternal"` for the formatting functions and options, all of which are supported by `"HTML::FormatText::Links"`, with the following caveats.

- "leftmargin", "rightmargin"

  In past versions of links without the `"-html-margin"` option you always get an extra 3 spaces within the requested left and right margins.

- "input\_charset", "output\_charset"

  An output charset requires Links 2.0 or higher (or some such version), and as of 2.2 the output cannot be UTF-8 (though the input can be).  Various unicode inputs are turned into reasonable output though, for example smiley face U+263A becomes ":-)".

Links can be a bit picky about its charset names.  This module attempts to ease that by for instance turning "latin-1" (not accepted) into "latin1" (which is accepted).  A full "ISO-8859-1" etc is accepted too.

## SEE ALSO

HTML::FormatExternal, [**links**(1)](/links/1.md)

## HOME PAGE

\<http://user42.tuxfamily.org/html-formatexternal/index.html\>

## LICENSE

Copyright 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015 Kevin Ryde

HTML-FormatExternal is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version.

HTML-FormatExternal is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with HTML-FormatExternal.  If not, see \<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/\>.