html2textrc(5) File Formats Manual html2textrc(5)
NAME
html2textrc - formatting properties file for html2text(1)
SYNOPSIS
Key [ = | : ] Value
DESCRIPTION
The html2textrc(5) file defines a set of formatting properties used by
the html2text(1) utility, that overrides the program's built-in format-
ting defaults. Each line of the html2textrc(5) file is either a for-
matting property or a comment.
Lines with a leading "#" or "!" (i.e. the first non-space character is
a "#" or a "!") and blank lines (i.e. a line consisting only of white-
space characters), are considered comments and ignored. Everything
else is literary interpreted by the parser as a formatting property,
where a string-type property value may also be empty (unsets default
value). Both, the property key and the property value, may contain C-
style escape sequences to mask meta characters.
A property definition line consists of:
(1) Optional leading space,
(2) the property key (a sequence of non-space characters except "="
and ":") as described below,
(3) an optional space,
(4) an optional "=" or ":",
(5) optional space,
(6) the property value as described below.
Everything up to the next newline is interpreted literary as the
value of the specified element. Literary meant leading white-
space must be quoted with backslashes (i.e. "\ "). Be aware not
to include unwanted trailing white-space characters.
OPTIONS
The following is the list of valid formatting properties, together with
their default values. If the -style command line option of html2text(1)
is used, different default values apply.
Curly braces indicate alternatives, e.g. {A B}C stands for AC or BC.
DOCUMENT.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after,
and how many blank columns are inserted to the left and to the
right of the formatted document. (Numeric.)
BODY.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = 0
Same for the document body. (Since the document body is cur-
rently the only document part that is rendered, it is virtually
the same whether you specify DOCUMENT or BODY). (Numeric.)
{OL UL DIR MENU DL}.vspace.{before between after} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before a list, be-
tween the individual list items, and after the list. (Numeric.)
{OL UL DIR MENU}.indents = 6
Specifies by how deep list items are indented. If an item bullet
would not fit into the space created by the indentation, then
the indentation is automatically increased such that the bullet
fits in (relevant for relatively wide bullets, e.g. roman num-
bers). If N blank-separated integers are specified instead of
one, then the first N-1 integers specify indentation for the
first N-1 list nesting levels, while the last integer specifies
the indentation for nesting levels N and higher. (Numeric.)
{UL DIR}.default_types = DISC CIRCLE SQUARE
Specifies the default list type (i.e. the bullet style), if the
HTML list tag does not specify an explicit type. Legal values
are NO_BULLET, DISC, SQUARE, CIRCLE, CUSTOM1, CUSTOM2 and CUS-
TOM3. If more than one value is specified, then the values ap-
ply for the respective list nesting levels (see indents). (Op-
tion.)
MENU.default_types = NO_BULLET
Same for <MENU>, but here the default is NO_BULLET. (Option.)
LI.{disc square circle custom1 custom2 custom3}_bullet = {* # o + - ~}
Specifies the strings used as list item bullets. (String.)
{DT DD}.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after,
and how many blank columns are inserted to the left and to the
right of each <DT> or <DD> element. (Numeric.)
HR.marker = =
Specifies the character to use for horizontal rules. (String.)
HR.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after,
and how many blank columns are inserted to the left and to the
right of the horizontal rule. (Numeric.)
{H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6}.prefix = {****** ***** **** *** ** *}
Specifies how headings are decorated with a prefix. (The default
values have a trailing blank, e.g. "****** ".) (String.)
{H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6}.suffix = {****** ***** **** *** ** *}
Specifies how headings are decorated with a suffix. (The default
values have a leading blank, e.g. "\ ******".) (String.)
{H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6}.vspace.{before after} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after
headings. (Numeric.)
{PRE P}.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after,
and how many blank columns are inserted to the left and to the
right of these items. (Numeric.)
{BLOCKQUOTE ADDRESS}.{vspace.{before after} indent.{left right}} = {0 0
5 5}
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after,
and how many blank columns are inserted to the left and to the
right of these items. (Numeric.)
TABLE.vspace.{before after} = 0
Specifies how many blank lines are inserted before and after ta-
bles. (Numeric.)
{H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6}.attributes = BOLD
Specifies the cell attributes for headings. The value is a se-
quence of NONE, BOLD, UNDERLINE and STRIKETHROUGH. (Option.)
{TT I BIG SMALL SUB SUP DFN CODE SAMP KBD CITE}.attributes = NONE
Specifies the cell attributes for these text items. Legal val-
ues are: NONE, BOLD, UNDERLINE or STRIKETHROUGH. (Option.)
U.attributes = UNDERLINE
Same for <U> elements, but with a different default value. (Op-
tion.)
{B EM STRONG}.attributes = BOLD
Same for these elements, but with a different default value.
(Option.)
STRIKE.attributes = STRIKETHROUGH
Same for <STRIKE> elements, but with a different default value.
(Option.)
A.attributes.{internal_link external_link} = UNDERLINE
Specifies the cell attributes for links. A link is an <A> ele-
ment that has an "HREF" attribute. An internal link is a link
whose "HREF" attribute starts with a hash character (e.g. "<A
href="#42">"). Legal values are again NONE, BOLD, UNDERLINE and
STRIKETHROUGH. (Option.)
IMG.replace.{all noalt} = unset
Specifies the string used to replace all <IMG> elements, or
those without an "ALT" attribute set. (String.)
IMG.alt.{prefix suffix} = {[ ]}
Specifies how the values (if any) of IMG elements' "ALT" at-
tributes are marked. (String.)
AUTHOR
Current maintainer and primary download location for html2text is:
Martin Bayer <mbayer@zedat.fu-berlin.de>
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~mbayer/tools/ <>
SEE ALSO
html2text(1)
2001-06-11 html2textrc(5)