---
name: "html2text"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "html2text"
version: "2.2.3-3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/html2text"
---

# html2text(1)

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-file*s, 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-file*s 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)](/html2textrc/5.md) 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)](/more/1.md), [**less**(1)](/less/1.md), 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.

## SEE ALSO

[**html2textrc**(5)](/html2textrc/5.md), [**less**(1)](/less/1.md), [**more**(1)](/more/1.md)