---
name: "wikipedia2text"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "wikipedia2text"
version: "0.14-4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/wikipedia2text"
---

# wikipedia2text(1)

displays Wikipedia entries on the command line

## NAME

wikipedia2text — displays **Wikipedia** entries on the command line

## SYNOPSIS

**wikipedia2text** \[**-BCnNoOpPsSuU**\]  \[**-b** *prog*\]  \[ {**-c**  \| **-i**  \| **-I** }  *patt*\]  \[**-l** *lang*\]  \[**-W** *base-url*\]  \[**-X** "*browser options*"\]  *Query*

**wikipedia2text**  **-o** \[**-b** *prog*\]  \[**-l** *lang*\]  *Query*

**wikipedia2text** \[**-h**\]

**wikipedia2text**  **-v**

**wikipedia2text**  **-r**

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the  **wikipedia2text** command.

**wikipedia2text** fetches and renders **Wikipedia** articles using a  text-mode web-browser (currently recognises  **elinks**, **links2**,  **links**, **lynx** and  **w3m**) and display the text of the article on  STDOUT respectively in a pager.

## OPTIONS

The program recognizes the following command line  options:

- **-b** *prog*

  Use program *prog* as  browser.

- **-B**

  Do not use browser configured via configuration file  or environment.

- **-c** *patt*, **-I** *patt*

  Colorize case-sensitive pattern  *patt* in output.

- **-C**, **-N**

  Colorize output.

- **-h**

  Show help and a summary of options.

- **-i** *patt*

  Colorize case-insensitive pattern  *patt* in output.

- **-l** *lang*

  use **Wikipedia** in  language *lang*. See the  **Wikipedia** Languages entry elsewhere in this  document.

- **-n**

  Do not colorize output.

- **-o**

  Open the **Wikipedia** page in the browser.

- **-O**

  Do not open the **Wikipedia** page in the browser.

- **-p**

  Use a pager (set by default).

- **-P**

  Don't use a pager.

- **-r**

  Display a random **Wikipedia** article.

- **-s**

  Display only the summary of the **Wikipedia** article.

- **-S**

  Display the full content of the **Wikipedia** article  and not only the summary.

- **-u**

  Just print the URL of the **Wikipedia** page and exit.

- **-U**

  Display the full content of the **Wikipedia** article  and not only print the URL of the page.

- **-v**

  Show version number.

- **-W** *base-url*

  use *base-url* as base URL  for wikipedia (e.g. use a different wiki), querying  this URL will happen by appending the search  term.

- **-X** *browser-options*

  pass through  *browser-options* to browser,  e.g. "-width 180". (Warning: must be in quotes if multiple  options should be passed; browser specific, not  checked.)

## ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables are recognized:

- **ABROWSER**

  Browser to use as default instead of to found or  configured web browser.

- **IGNCASE**

  Default value for case-sensitivity of colorizing  the output. Can be set to "true" or "false".

- **LOCAL**

  Default value for language in which **Wikipedia** should be  used. See the **Wikipedia** Languages entry elsewhere in  this document.

- **OUTPUTURL**

  Determines, if **wikipedia2text** should display only  the URL of the **Wikipedia** article by default. Can  be set to "true" or "false".

- **PAGER**

  Default value for pager to use. Can also be set  to "true", in which case, **wikipedia2text** tries to  figure out the appropriate pager, or "false", which  means not to use a pager at all.

- **SHORT**

  Determines, if **wikipedia2text** should display only  the summary of the **Wikipedia** article by default. Can  be set to "true" or "false".

- **USEBROWSER**

  Determines, if **wikipedia2text** should open the **Wikipedia** page  via **openurl** in the globally set default  browser, i.e. **Firefox** or  **Konqueror**, by default. Can be set to  "true" or "false".

## FILES

- **$HOME/.wikipedia2textrc**

  Will be sourced from **wikipedia2text** on  startup. Should contain variable assignments. The same  variables as for the environment are recognised.

## WIKIPEDIA LANGUAGES

**wikipedia2text** currently supports the following  **Wikipedia** languages:

- af

  Cape Dutch (Afrikaans)

- als

  Alemannic

- ca

  Catalan

- cs

  Czech

- da

  Danish

- de

  German

- en

  English

- eo

  Esperanto

- es

  Spanish

- fi

  Finnish

- fr

  French

- hu

  Hungarian

- ia

  Interlingua

- is

  Islandic

- it

  Italian

- la

  Latin

- lb

  Luxembourgian

- nds

  Low German

- nl

  Dutch

- nn, no

  Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål)

- pl

  Polish

- pt

  Portuguese

- rm

  Rhaeto-Romanic

- ro

  Romanian

- simple

  Simple English

- sk

  Slovak

- sl

  Slovenian

- sv

  Swedish

- tr

  Turkish

## SEE ALSO

[elinks(1)](/elinks/1.md), [links(1)](/links/1.md), [links2(1)](/links2/1.md), [lynx(1)](/lynx/1.md), [w3m(1)](/w3m/1.md)

## AUTHOR

**wikipedia2text** was written by Christian Brabandt  \<cb@256bit.org\>. Patches also from Axel Beckert  \<abe@deuxchevaux.org\>.

This manual page was written by Axel Beckert \<abe@deuxchevaux.org\> for  the **Debian** system (but may be used by others).  Permission is  granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under  the terms of the GNU General Public License  (GPL), Version 2 any later version published  by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General  Public License can be found in  **/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL**.

## HISTORY

wikipedia2text was first released by Christian Brabandt on  *in*  *his blog (link to URL http://blog.256bit.org/archives/126-Wikipedia-in-der-Shell.html)*  with as script named  **wiki**. Some users may find it useful to create  an alias with that name for speeding up the typing of a  **wikipedia2text** command if no other command of that name is  present.

## OTHER INFO

The current version of **wikipedia2text** should be available at  *on Christian*  *Brabandt's website (link to URL http://www.256bit.org/~chrisbra/wiki)* .