---
name: "sgml2txt"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "linuxdoc-tools"
version: "0.9.86-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/sgml2txt"
---

# sgml2txt(1)

create plain text output from a LinuxDoc DTD SGML source file

## NAME

sgml2txt - create plain text output from a LinuxDoc DTD SGML source file

## SYNOPSIS

**sgml2txt \[generic-option...\] \[--manpage\] \[--filter\] \[--blanks=*n*\]** *file*\[.sgml\]

## DESCRIPTION

**sgml2txt** is an old and obsoleted form of the text converter command of LinuxDoc-Tools (its name may be misleading, as it is not a tool for any SGML DTD, only supports the SGML LinuxDoc DTD). It is recommended to switch the new form **linuxdoc -B text** now. It converts a LinuxDoc DTD SGML source file to ASCII, ISO-8859-1, or EUC-JP output. Output will appear in *file.txt* where *file* is the name of the SGML source file.

The attribute/value pair "output=txt" is set for conditionals.

## OPTIONS

**sgml2txt accepts all the generic options described in** [**linuxdoc**(1)](/linuxdoc/1.md), and the following specific options:

- \--manpage, -m

  Outputs a groff source file, suitable for formatting with **groff -man** for man pages

- \--filter, -f

  Remove backspace-overstrikes from the intermediate form generated by [**groff**(1)](/groff/1.md).

- \--pass, -P

  The argument of the pass option is added to the command-line options handed to [**groff**(1)](/groff/1.md).

- \--blanks=*n*, -b

  Set the limit of continuous blank lines for generating the output document. The default limit is 3. If 0 (zero) is specified, the result have many continuous blank lines.

- file

  The SGML source file, named either *file* or *file.sgml*

## FILES

Many files and executables in /usr/share/linuxdoc-tools are used.

## BUGS

None known.

## AUTHOR

Originally written by Greg Hankins \<greg.hankins@cc.gatech.edu\>, based on scripts by Tom Gordon and Alexander Horz, and later rewritten by Cees de Groot \<cg@cdegroot.com\> for SGML-Tools (v1). Previously maintained by Taketoshi Sano \<sano@debian.org\> for Linuxdoc-Tools. Currently maintained by Agustin Martin \<agustin6martin AT gmail com\>.

## SEE ALSO

[**linuxdoc**(1)](/linuxdoc/1.md), [**sgml2html**(1)](/sgml2html/1.md), [**sgml2info**(1)](/sgml2info/1.md), [**sgml2latex**(1)](/sgml2latex/1.md), [**sgml2lyx**(1)](/sgml2lyx/1.md), [**sgml2rtf**(1)](/sgml2rtf/1.md), [**sgmlcheck**(1)](/sgmlcheck/1.md).