npm package: @mroussedd/html-to-text
Description: Advanced html to plain text converter
Author: Malte Legenhausen
Latest version: 6.0.0-dd

# html-to-text

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An advanced converter that parses HTML and returns beautiful text. It was mainly designed to transform HTML E-Mail templates to a text representation. So it is currently optimized for table layouts.

## Features

* Transform headlines to uppercase text.
* Convert tables to an appropiate text representation with rows and columns.
* Word wrapping for paragraphs (default 80 chars).
* Automatic extraction of href information from links.
* `<br>` conversion to `\n`.
* Unicode support.
* Runs in browser and server environments.

## Installation

```
npm install html-to-text
```

Or when you want to use it as command line interface it is recommended to install it globally via

```
npm install html-to-text -g
```

## Usage

```js
const htmlToText = require('html-to-text');

const text = htmlToText.fromString('<h1>Hello World</h1>', {
  wordwrap: 130
});
console.log(text); // Hello World
```

### Options

You can configure the behaviour of html-to-text with the following options:

Option             | Default   | Description
------------------ | --------- | -----------
`baseElement`      | `'body'`  | The tag(s) whose text content will be captured from the html and added to the resulting text output.<br/>Single element or an array of elements can be specified, each as a single tag name with optional css class and id parameters e.g. `['p.class1.class2#id1#id2', 'p.class1.class2#id1#id2']`.
`decodeOptions`    | `{ isAttributeValue: false, strict: false }` | Text decoding options given to `he.decode`. For more informations see the [he](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/he) module.
`format`           | `{}`      | An object with custom formatting functions for specific elements (see below).
`hideLinkHrefIfSameAsText` | `false` | By default links are translated the following `<a href='link'>text</a>` => becomes => `text [link]`. If this option is set to `true` and `link` and `text` are the same, `[link]` will be hidden and only `text` visible.
`ignoreHref`       | `false`   | Ignore all links if `true`.
`ignoreImage`      | `false`   | Ignore all images if `true`.
`linkHrefBaseUrl`  | `null`    | Server host for link `href` attributes and image `src` attributes *(starting from version 6.0.0)*, where the links start at the root (`/`).<br/>For example, `linkHrefBaseUrl = 'http://asdf.com'` and `<a href='/dir/subdir'>...</a>` the link in the text will be `http://asdf.com/dir/subdir`.<br/>Keep in mind that `linkHrefBaseUrl` shouldn't end with a `/`.
`longWordSplit`    | `{ wrapCharacters: [], forceWrapOnLimit: false }` | Describes how to wrap long words, has the following parameters:<br/>`wrapCharacters` is an array containing the characters that may be wrapped on, these are used in order<br/>`forceWrapOnLimit` defines whether to break long words on the limit if `true`.
`noAnchorUrl`      | `true`    | Ignore anchor links (where `href='#...'`).
`noLinkBrackets`   | `false`   | Don't print brackets around the link if `true`.
`preserveNewlines` | `false`   | By default, any newlines `\n` in a block of text will be removed. If `true`, these newlines will not be removed.
`returnDomByDefault` | `true`  | Convert the entire document if we don't find the tag defined in `baseElement` if `true`.
`singleNewLineParagraphs` | `false` | By default, paragraphs are converted with two newlines (`\n\n`). Set to `true` to convert to a single newline.
`tables`           | `[]`      | Allows to select certain tables by the `class` or `id` attribute from the HTML document. This is necessary because the majority of HTML E-Mails uses a table based layout. Prefix your table selectors with an `.` for the `class` and with a `#` for the `id` attribute. All other tables are ignored.<br/>You can assign `true` to this attribute to select all tables.
`unorderedListItemPrefix` | `' * '` | The string that is used as item prefix for unordered lists `<ol>`.
`uppercaseHeadings` | `true`   | By default, headings (`<h1>`, `<h2>`, etc) are uppercased. Set to `false` to leave headings as they are.
`wordwrap`         | `80`      | After how many chars a line break should follow in `p` elements.<br/>Set to `null` or `false` to disable word-wrapping.

### Override formatting for specific elements

By using the `format` option, you can specify formatting for these elements:

Key               | Tags
----------------- | -----------------
`anchor`          | `a`
`blockquote`      | `blockquote`
`heading`         | `h1`, `h2`, `h3`, `h4`, `h5`, `h6`
`horizontalLine`  | `hr`
`image`           | `img`
`lineBreak`       | `br`
~~`listItem`~~    |
`orderedList`     | `ol`
`paragraph`       | `p`, `pre`
`table`           | `table`
`text`            |
`unorderedList`   | `ul`

Each key must be a function which eventually receive `elem` (the current elem), `fn` (the next formatting function) and `options` (the options passed to html-to-text).

```js
var htmlToText = require('html-to-text');

var text = htmlToText.fromString('<h1>Hello World</h1>', {
  format: {
    heading: function (elem, fn, options) {
      var h = fn(elem.children, options);
      return '====\n' + h.toUpperCase() + '\n====';
    }
  }
});

console.log(text);
```

## Command Line Interface

It is possible to use html-to-text as command line interface. This allows an easy validation of your generated text and the integration in other systems that does not run on node.js.

`html-to-text` uses `stdin` and `stdout` for data in and output. So you can use `html-to-text` the following way:

```
cat example/test.html | html-to-text > test.txt
```

There also all options available as described above. You can use them like this:

```
cat example/test.html | html-to-text --tables=#invoice,.address --wordwrap=100 > test.txt
```

The `tables` option has to be declared as comma separated list without whitespaces.

## Example

```html
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
  </head>

  <body>
    <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
      <tr>
        <td>
          <h2>Paragraphs</h2>
          <p class="normal-space">At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. <a href="www.github.com">Github</a>
          </p>
          <p class="normal-space">At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
          </p>
        </td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <hr/>
          <h2>Pretty printed table</h2>
          <table id="invoice">
            <thead>
              <tr>
                <th>Article</th>
                <th>Price</th>
                <th>Taxes</th>
                <th>Amount</th>
                <th>Total</th>
              </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
              <tr>
                <td>
                  <p>
                    Product 1<br />
                    <span style="font-size:0.8em">Contains: 1x Product 1</span>
                  </p>
                </td>
                <td align="right" valign="top">6,99&euro;</td>
                <td align="right" valign="top">7%</td>
                <td align="right" valign="top">1</td>
                <td align="right" valign="top">6,99€</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td>Shipment costs</td>
                <td align="right">3,25€</td>
                <td align="right">7%</td>
                <td align="right">1</td>
                <td align="right">3,25€</td>
              </tr>
            </tbody>
            <tfoot>
              <tr>
                <td>&nbsp;</td>
                <td>&nbsp;</td>
                <td colspan="3">to pay: 10,24€</td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td></td>
                <td></td>
                <td colspan="3">Taxes 7%: 0,72€</td>
              </tr>
            </tfoot>
          </table>

        </td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <hr/>
          <h2>Lists</h2>
          <ul>
            <li>At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</li>
            <li>At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</li>
          </ul>
          <ol>
            <li>At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</li>
            <li>At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</li>
          </ol>
        </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <hr />
          <h2>Column Layout with tables</h2>
          <table class="address">
            <tr>
              <th align="left">Invoice Address</th>
              <th align="left">Shipment Address</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td align="left">
                <p>
                Mr.<br/>
                John Doe<br/>
                Featherstone Street 49<br/>
                28199 Bremen<br/>
                </p>
              </td>
              <td align="left">
                <p>
                Mr.<br/>
                John Doe<br/>
                Featherstone Street 49<br/>
                28199 Bremen<br/>
                </p>
              </td>
            </tr>
          </table>
        </td>
        <td></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <hr/>
          <h2>Mailto formating</h2>
          <p class="normal-space small">
            Some Company<br />
            Some Street 42<br />
            Somewhere<br />
            E-Mail: <a href="mailto:test@example.com">Click here</a>
          </p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>
```

Gets converted to:

```text
PARAGRAPHS
At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum
dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor
invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos
et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea
takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Github [www.github.com]

At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum
dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor
invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos
et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea
takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRETTY PRINTED TABLE
ARTICLE                  PRICE   TAXES             AMOUNT   TOTAL
Product 1                6,99€   7%                1        6,99€
Contains: 1x Product 1
Shipment costs           3,25€   7%                1        3,25€
                                 to pay: 10,24€
                                 Taxes 7%: 0,72€

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LISTS
 * At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
   gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
 * At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
   gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

 1. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
    gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
 2. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd
    gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COLUMN LAYOUT WITH TABLES
INVOICE ADDRESS          SHIPMENT ADDRESS
Mr.                      Mr.
John Doe                 John Doe
Featherstone Street 49   Featherstone Street 49
28199 Bremen             28199 Bremen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAILTO FORMATING
Some Company
Some Street 42
Somewhere
E-Mail: Click here [test@example.com]
```

## License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2019 werk85 &lt;malte@werk85.de&gt;

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.