What is the most convenient way to convert HTML to plain text while preserving line breaks (with JavaScript)?

user_430083 0
Viewed 22191

Basically I just need the effect of copying that HTML from browser window and pasting it in a textarea element.

For example I want this:

<p>Some</p>
<div>text<br />Some</div>
<div>text</div>

to become this:

Some
text
Some
text
plaintext html javascript
5 Answers

I made a function based on this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42254787/3626940

function htmlToText(html){
    //remove code brakes and tabs
    html = html.replace(/\n/g, "");
    html = html.replace(/\t/g, "");

    //keep html brakes and tabs
    html = html.replace(/<\/td>/g, "\t");
    html = html.replace(/<\/table>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<\/tr>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<\/p>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<\/div>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<\/h>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<br>/g, "\n"); html = html.replace(/<br( )*\/>/g, "\n");

    //parse html into text
    var dom = (new DOMParser()).parseFromString('<!doctype html><body>' + html, 'text/html');
    return dom.body.textContent;
}
user_36269400

Based on chrmcpn answer, I had to convert a basic HTML email template into a plain text version as part of a build script in node.js. I had to use JSDOM to make it work, but here's my code:

const htmlToText = (html) => {
    html = html.replace(/\n/g, "");
    html = html.replace(/\t/g, "");

    html = html.replace(/<\/p>/g, "\n\n");
    html = html.replace(/<\/h1>/g, "\n\n");
    html = html.replace(/<br>/g, "\n");
    html = html.replace(/<br( )*\/>/g, "\n");

    const dom = new JSDOM(html);
    let text = dom.window.document.body.textContent;

    text = text.replace(/  /g, "");
    text = text.replace(/\n /g, "\n");
    text = text.trim();
    return text;
}
user_48933900
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