Usage

The module is simple enough to use. This tutorial will get you started.

Installing

These are the methods you can get the module installed:-

PIP

For those who have pip, we got your back.

$ pip install html2text

Clone from Git Repository

Clone the repository from https://github.com/Alir3z4/html2text

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Alir3z4/html2text.git
$ python setup.py build
$ python setup.py install

Basic Usage

Once installed the module can be used as follows.

import html2text
html = function_to_get_some_html()
text = html2text.html2text(html)
print(text)

This converts the provided html to text( Markdown text) with all the options set to default.

Using Options

To customize the options provided by the module the usage is as follows:

import html2text
text_maker = html2text.HTML2Text()
text_maker.ignore_links = True
text_maker.bypass_tables = False
html = function_to_get_some_html()
text = text_maker.handle(html)
print(text)

Available Options

All options exist in the config.py file. A list is provided here with simple indications of their function.

• UNICODE_SNOB for using unicode
• ESCAPE_SNOB for escaping every special character
• LINKS_EACH_PARAGRAPH for putting links after every paragraph
• BODY_WIDTH for wrapping long lines
• SKIP_INTERNAL_LINKS to skip #local-anchor things
• INLINE_LINKS for formatting images and links
• PROTECT_LINKS protect from line breaks
• GOOGLE_LIST_INDENT no of pixels to indent nested lists
• IGNORE_ANCHORS
• IGNORE_IMAGES
• IMAGES_AS_HTML always generate HTML tags for images; preserves height, width, alt if possible.
• IMAGES_TO_ALT
• IMAGES_WITH_SIZE
• IGNORE_EMPHASIS
• BYPASS_TABLES format tables in HTML rather than Markdown
• IGNORE_TABLES ignore table-related tags (table, th, td, tr) while keeping rows
• SINGLE_LINE_BREAK to use a single line break rather than two
• UNIFIABLE is a dictionary which maps unicode abbreviations to ASCII values
• RE_SPACE for finding space-only lines
• RE_ORDERED_LIST_MATCHER for matching ordered lists in MD
• RE_UNORDERED_LIST_MATCHER for matching unordered list matcher in MD
• RE_MD_CHARS_MATCHER for matching Md \,[,],( and )
• RE_MD_CHARS_MATCHER_ALL for matching ,*,_,{,},[,],(,),#,!
• RE_MD_DOT_MATCHER for matching lines starting with 1.
• RE_MD_PLUS_MATCHER for matching lines starting with +
• RE_MD_DASH_MATCHER for matching lines starting with (-)
• RE_SLASH_CHARS a string of slash escapeable characters
• RE_MD_BACKSLASH_MATCHER to match \char
• USE_AUTOMATIC_LINKS to convert <a href='http://xyz'>http://xyz</a> to <http://xyz>
• MARK_CODE to wrap 'pre' blocks with [code]...[/code] tags
• WRAP_LINKS to decide if links have to be wrapped during text wrapping (implies INLINE_LINKS = False)
• WRAP_LIST_ITEMS to decide if list items have to be wrapped during text wrapping
• WRAP_TABLES to decide if tables have to be wrapped during text wrapping
• DECODE_ERRORS to handle decoding errors. 'strict', 'ignore', 'replace' are the acceptable values.
• DEFAULT_IMAGE_ALT takes a string as value and is used whenever an image tag is missing an alt value. The default for this is an empty string '' to avoid backward breakage
• OPEN_QUOTE is the character used to open a quote when replacing the <q> tag. It defaults to ".
• CLOSE_QUOTE is the character used to close a quote when replacing the <q> tag. It defaults to ".

Options that are not in the config.py file:

• emphasis_mark is the character used when replacing the <em> tag. It defaults to _.
• strong_mark is the characer used when replacing the <strong> tag. It defaults to **.

To alter any option the procedure is to create a parser with parser = html2text.HTML2Text() and to set the option on the parser. example: parser.unicode_snob = True to set the UNICODE_SNOB option.

Command line options

Option	Description
--version	Show program version number and exit
-h, --help	Show this help message and exit
--ignore-links	Do not include any formatting for links
--protect-links	Protect links from line breaks surrounding them "+" with angle brackets
--ignore-images	Do not include any formatting for images
--images-as-html	Always write image tags as raw html; preserves "height", "width" and "alt" if possible.
--images-to-alt	Discard image data, only keep alt text
--images-with-size	Write image tags with height and width attrs as raw html to retain dimensions
-g, --google-doc	Convert an html-exported Google Document
-d, --dash-unordered-list	Use a dash rather than a star for unordered list items
-b BODY_WIDTH, --body-width=BODY_WIDTH	Number of characters per output line, 0 for no wrap
-i LIST_INDENT, --google-list-indent=LIST_INDENT	Number of pixels Google indents nested lists
-s, --hide-strikethrough	Hide strike-through text. only relevant when -g is specified as well
--escape-all	Escape all special characters. Output is less readable, but avoids corner case formatting issues.
--bypass-tables	Format tables in HTML rather than Markdown syntax.
--ignore-tables	Ignore table-related tags (table, th, td, tr) while keeping rows.
--single-line-break	Use a single line break after a block element rather than two.
--reference-links	Use reference links instead of inline links to create markdown
--ignore-emphasis	Ignore all emphasis formatting in the html.
--include-sup-sub	Include <sub> and <sub> tags.
-e, --asterisk-emphasis	Use asterisk rather than underscore to emphasize text
--unicode-snob	Use unicode throughout instead of ASCII
--no-automatic-links	Do not use automatic links like https://www.google.com/
--no-skip-internal-links	Turn off skipping of internal links
--links-after-para	Put the links after the paragraph and not at end of document
--mark-code	Mark code with [code]...[/code] blocks
--no-wrap-links	Do not wrap links during text wrapping. Implies --reference-links
--wrap-list-items	Wrap list items during text wrapping.
--wrap-tables	Wrap tables during text wrapping.
--decode-errors=HANDLER	What to do in case an error is encountered. ignore, strict, replace etc.
--pad-tables	Use padding to make tables look good.
--default-image-alt=Image_Here	Inserts the given alt text whenever images are missing alt values.
--open-quote="	Inserts the given text when opening a quote. Defaults to ".
--close-quote="	Inserts the given text when closing a quote. Defaults to ".