HTML::FormatText(3)

💅 HTML::FormatText — bestie's guide to turning HTML into plain text ✨

Okay so picture this: you've got a whole HTML tree and you just want the words, right? No bold, no italic, no underline, just the vibes in plaintext. That's exactly what HTML::FormatText does. It's a formatter that outputs plain text, and it is literally the main character of this page. 🎀

One thing to know up front: all character attributes (bold/italic/underline) are ignored — it does not care about your drama. And formatting of HTML tables and forms is not implemented, so don't come for it about that. 🙈

HTML::FormatText is built on HTML::Formatter, and the documentation for that module applies to this one too — especially "new" in HTML::Formatter, "format_file" in HTML::Formatter, and "format_string" in HTML::Formatter. Go read those if you want the full lore. iykyk. 📚

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🌈 VERSION 🌈

version 2.16 — yes she's got a version number and yes it's iconic.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

So the classic way, with a tree and everything:

    use HTML::TreeBuilder;
    $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder->new->parse_file("test.html");

    use HTML::FormatText;
    $formatter = HTML::FormatText->new(leftmargin => 0, rightmargin => 50);
    print $formatter->format($tree);

Or, more simply — and honestly this is the lowkey slay way:

    use HTML::FormatText;
    my $string = HTML::FormatText->format_file(
        'test.html',
        leftmargin => 0, rightmargin => 50
        );

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

HTML::FormatText is a formatter that outputs plain text. All character attributes (bold/italic/underline) are ignored. Formatting of HTML tables and forms is not implemented. Periodt. 💀

It's built on HTML::Formatter, and the docs for that module apply here too — especially "new" in HTML::Formatter, "format_file" in HTML::Formatter, and "format_string" in HTML::Formatter. Highly recommend a read, fr fr. 🫶

When you construct the formatter, you might specify these parameters:

• leftmargin (alias lm) — the column of the left margin. The default is 3. So she starts a lil bit in from the edge, cute. 🌸
• rightmargin (alias rm) — the column of the right margin. The default is 72. That's where the text wraps, so keep it in mind. 📏

Pro tip from me to you: these are the only two params listed here, so don't go inventing extra ones and then acting surprised, bestie. 😭

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

HTML::Formatter — the parent module, the blueprint, the origin story. Go show it some love. 👑

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🦋 AUTHORS 🦋

These absolute legends made this happen:

• Nigel Metheringham <nigelm@cpan.org> 💜
• Sean M Burke <sburke@cpan.org> ⭐
• Gisle Aas <gisle@ActiveState.com> 🌟

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🎀 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🎀

This software is copyright (c) 2016 by Nigel Metheringham, 2002-2005 Sean M Burke, 1999-2002 Gisle Aas.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. So yes, it's free, it's open, it's giving generous. 💖

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🌈 And that's the whole page, bestie. HTML::FormatText version 2.16, brought to you with love on 2023-07-03 — go forth and format some plaintext, you've got this. Slay. 💅✨