http://forums.etherpad.com/viewtopic.php?id=168 url = URI.parse("http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/export/#{pad}/latest?format=txt") $stderr.print "Getting #{url}... " s = Net::HTTP.get(url) $stderr.puts "done." s.strip end For extra streamlining, combine this with a custom Rake (Ruby make ) task. (If you're not familiar with the rake or make tools, you might be interested in  this article on dependency-based programming, by  Martin Fowler