ansifilter(1)

✨ NAME ✨

Okay bestie, let's talk about ansifilter 💖

Ansifilter is an ANSI escape code processor and converter 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

ansifilter [d:i:F:m:o:r:s:e:fhptvHRT] [-i input file] [-o output file]
[--text] [--html] [--latex] [--tex] [--rtf] [input files]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so, Ansifilter is a small utility that handles text files full of ANSI terminal escape codes 🧚 The command sequences can either get stripped out or get interpreted to make formatted output (HTML, LaTeX, TeX, RTF). Iconic.

See the README file for details 📖

🎀 File options 🎀

• -i, --input=<file> (default stdin) — the name of your input file 📥
• -o, --output=<file> (default stdout) — the name of your output file 📤
• -O, --outdir=<dir> — the name of your output directory 📁
• -t, --tail — keeps reading after end-of-file, kinda like tail -f. It'll use the system tail if one is available ⏳
• -x, --max-size=<size> — sets the max input file size (examples: 512M, 1G; default: 256M) 🍓
• -n, --tee — copies stdin to stdout and writes the filtered output to a file too 👯
• -b, --append — appends to the output file (use with --tee) ➕

🌈 Output formats 🌈

• -T, --text — plain text output (default) 📝
• -H, --html — HTML output 🌐
• -M, --pango — Pango markup output 🎨
• -L, --latex — LaTeX output 🧮
• -P, --tex — Plain TeX output 💜
• -R, --rtf — RTF output 📄
• -B, --bbcode — BBCode output 💬
• -S, --svg — SVG output ✨

💅 Format options 💅

• -a, --anchors(=self) — adds HTML line anchors (opt: self referencing, assumes -l) ⚓
• -d, --doc-title — sets the HTML/LaTeX/SVG document title 🏷️
• -f, --fragment — leaves out the HTML header and footer ✂️
• -F, --font=<font> — sets the HTML/RTF/SVG font face 🔤
• -k, --ignore-clear(=false) — doesn't follow clear (ESC K) commands (default: true). Not me ignoring the clear stuff by default 🙈
• -c, --ignore-csi — doesn't follow CSI commands (useful for UTF-8 input) 🫶
• -A, --line-append=<s> — outputs a string after each output line 🖊️
• -l, --line-numbers — prints line numbers in the output file 🔢
• -m, --map=<path> — reads a color mapping file (see README) 🗺️
• -r, --style-ref=<rf> — sets the HTML/TeX/LaTeX/SVG stylesheet path 🎨
• -s, --font-size=<num> — sets the HTML/RTF/SVG font size 🔠
• -e, --encoding=<enc> — sets the HTML encoding, which has to match the input file encoding. Omit the encoding info if enc=NONE 🌍
• -p, --plain — ignores the ANSI formatting info 🫥
• -w, --wrap=<len> — wraps long lines 🎀
• -g, --no-default-fg — leaves out the default foreground color 🩶
• --no-trailing-nl — leaves out the trailing newline ↩️
• --no-version-info — leaves out the version info comment 🤫
• --wrap-no-numbers — leaves out line numbers on wrapped lines (assumes -l) 🔕
• --derived-styles — outputs dynamic stylesheets (HTML/SVG) 🪄

🖼️ ASCII art options 🖼️

• --art-cp437 — parses codepage 437 ASCII art (HTML and RTF output) 🏛️
• --art-bin — parses BIN/XBIN ASCII art (HTML output, no stdin) 👾
• --art-tundra — parses Tundra ANSI art (HTML output, no stdin) 🏜️
• --art-width — sets the ASCII art width (default 80) ↔️
• --art-height — sets the ASCII art height (default 150) ↕️

⭐ OTHER OPTIONS ⭐

• -h, --help — prints help 🆘
• -v, --version — prints the version and license info 📜

If no input or output files are specified, stdin and stdout get used for input and output. Plain text gets generated if no output format is given. Parsing XBIN files overrides --art-width, --art-height and --map options.

Heads up, bestie 🚨 The ANSI art file formats BIN, XBIN and TND cannot be read from stdin. Don't try it 💀

🍓 Examples 🍓

File conversions:

ansifilter -i text_with_ansi.txt -o text_without_ansi.txt

tail -f server.log | ansifilter

ansifilter *.txt

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Andre Simon <a.simon@mailbox.org>

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

More information at http://www.andre-simon.de/.

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Andre Simon really ate with this one 👑 Last touched 2025-09-09, and that's the ansifilter(1) era, periodt 🫶💖