---
name: "vilistextum"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "vilistextum"
version: "2.6.9-1.4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/vilistextum"
---

# vilistextum(1)

html to ascii converter

## NAME

vilistextum -  html to ascii converter

## SYNOPSIS

**vilistextum** \[OPTIONS\] \[inputfile \|-\] \[outputfile \| -\]

## DESCRIPTION

vilistextum is a html to ascii converter specifically programmed to get the best out of incorrect html.

## OPTIONS

- **inputfile,- resp. outputfile,-**

  **replace inputfile with '-' for reading from standard input, likewise outputfile with '-' for writing to standard output.**

- **-a, --no-alt**

  **don't output anything for IMG tags even if they have an ALT attribute. Implies --no-image.**

- **-c, --convert-tags**

  **some tags will be converted to special characters.**

- **-e, --errorlevel NUMBER**

  **increase level of verbosity for error messages (0: No error messages).**

- **-i, --defimage STRING**

  **IMG tags without alt attribute are output as \[STRING\].**

- **-l, --links**

  **numbers the links in the document and creates footnotes of each link at the end of the file.**

- **-k, --links-inline**

  **print the links directly after the html tag.**

- **-m, --dont-convert-characters**

  **don't convert the entities from windows1252 (€-Ÿ and their proper entity names)**

- **-n, --no-image**

  **don't output \[Image\] for IMG tags that have no ALT attribute.**

- **-p, --palm**

  **output text more suitable for reading on a PDA.**

- **-r, --remove-empty-alt**

  **if there is an empty ALT attribute in a IMG tag (eg \<IMG href="..." alt=""\>), don't output '\[\]'.**

- **-s, --shrink-lines \[NUMBER\]**

  **if there are more than NUMBER empty lines, output only NUMBER. Default: 1.**

- **-t, --no-title**

  **don't output title.**

- **-w, --width NUMBER**

  **maximum line width.**

##

- **-h, --help**

  **display this help and exit**

- **-v, --version**

  **output version information and exit**

## MULTIBYTE OPTIONS (Only available if compiled with multibyte support)

- **-u, --output-utf-8**

  **instead of the character set of the html document, everything will be output as utf-8.**

- **-x, --translit**

  **use the //TRANSLIT feature of libiconv. Consult the iconv manual for details.**

- **-y, --charset CHARSET**

  **if the HTML document doesn't provide a character set in the meta tags, use CHARSET.**

## LIMITATIONS

**The rendering of tables is not very good.**

**The handling of OL is incomplete. The program treats it as UL and more than 10 nested lists confuse it.**

**Text is never justified.**

## REPORTING BUGS

**Please report bugs to \<bhaak@gmx.net\>.**

## AUTHOR

**Vilistextum** **was written by Patric Mueller \<bhaak@gmx.net\> and may be freely distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY for this program.**

## SEE ALSO

[**iconv**(3)](/iconv/3.md), [**lynx**(1)](/lynx/1.md), [**links**(1)](/links/1.md), [**w3m**(1)](/w3m/1.md)