html2text is a Python script that converts a page of HTML into clean, easy-to-read plain ASCII text. Better yet, that ASCII also happens to be valid Markdown (a text-to-HTML format).
Usage: html2text [filename [encoding]]
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
--version |
Show program's version number and exit |
-h, --help |
Show this help message and exit |
--ignore-links |
Don't include any formatting for links |
--escape-all |
Escape all special characters. Output is less readable, but avoids corner case formatting issues. |
--reference-links |
Use reference links instead of links to create markdown |
--mark-code |
Mark preformatted and code blocks with [code]...[/code] |
For a complete list of options see the docs
Or you can use it from within Python:
>>> import html2text
>>>
>>> print(html2text.html2text("<p><strong>Zed's</strong> dead baby, <em>Zed's</em> dead.</p>"))
**Zed's** dead baby, _Zed's_ dead.
Or with some configuration options:
>>> import html2text
>>>
>>> h = html2text.HTML2Text()
>>> # Ignore converting links from HTML
>>> h.ignore_links = True
>>> print(h.handle("<p>Hello, <a href='https://www.google.com/earth/'>world</a>!"))
Hello, world!
>>> print(h.handle("<p>Hello, <a href='https://www.google.com/earth/'>world</a>!"))
Hello, world!
>>> # Don't Ignore links anymore, I like links
>>> h.ignore_links = False
>>> print(h.handle("<p>Hello, <a href='https://www.google.com/earth/'>world</a>!"))
Hello, [world](https://www.google.com/earth/)!
Originally written by Aaron Swartz. This code is distributed under the GPLv3.
How to install
html2text is available on pypi
https://pypi.org/project/html2text/
Using pip
Using uv (recommended)
uv is a fast Python package installer and resolver.
$ uv pip install html2text
Or add to your project:
Development
This project uses uv for dependency management.
Setup development environment
# Install uv if you haven't already $ pip install uv # Sync dependencies (creates virtual environment and installs all dependencies) $ uv sync # Activate the virtual environment $ source .venv/bin/activate # On Unix/macOS # or $ .venv\Scripts\activate # On Windows
How to run unit tests
# Using uv (recommended) $ uv run pytest # Or with tox $ tox
To see the coverage results:
$ uv run pytest --cov=html2text --cov-report=html
then open the ./htmlcov/index.html file in your browser.
Code Quality & Linting
Run individual linters:
# Black (code formatting) $ uv run black . # isort (import sorting) $ uv run isort . # Flake8 (code linting) $ uv run flake8 # mypy (type checking) $ uv run mypy --strict html2text
Or run all checks with tox:
Documentation
Documentation lives here