How to convert HTML page to plain text in node.js?
You can use TextVersionJS (http://textversionjs.com) to generate the plain text version of an HTML string. It's pure javascript (with tons of RegExps) so you can use it in the browser and in node.js as well.
This library may work for your needs, but it's NOT the same as getting the text of an element in the browser. Its purpose is to create a text version of an HTML email. This means that things like images are included. For example, given the following HTML and code snippet:
var textVersion = require("textversionjs");
var htmlText = "<html>" +
"<body>" +
"Lorem ipsum <a href=\"http://foo.foo\">dolor</a> sic <strong>amet</strong><br />" +
"Lorem ipsum <img src=\"http://foo.jpg\" alt=\"foo\" /> sic <pre>amet</pre>" +
"<p>Lorem ipsum dolor <br /> sic amet</p>" +
"<script>" +
"alert(\"nothing\");" +
"</script>" +
"</body>" +
"</html>";
var plainText = textVersion.htmlToPlainText(htmlText);
The variable plainText will contain this string:
Lorem ipsum [dolor] (http://foo.foo) sic amet
Lorem ipsum ![foo] (http://foo.jpg) sic amet
Lorem ipsum dolor
sic amet
Note that it does properly ignore script tags. You'll find the latest version of the source code on GitHub.
Use jsdom and jQuery (server-side).
With jQuery you can delete all scripts, styles, templates and the like and then you can extract the text.
Example
(This is not tested with jsdom and node, only in Chrome)
jQuery('script').remove()
jQuery('noscript').remove()
jQuery('body').text().replace(/\s{2,9999}/g, ' ')
For those searching for a regex solution, here is my one
const HTMLPartToTextPart = (HTMLPart) => (
HTMLPart
.replace(/\n/ig, '')
.replace(/<style[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/style[^>]*>/ig, '')
.replace(/<head[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/head[^>]*>/ig, '')
.replace(/<script[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/script[^>]*>/ig, '')
.replace(/<\/\s*(?:p|div)>/ig, '\n')
.replace(/<br[^>]*\/?>/ig, '\n')
.replace(/<[^>]*>/ig, '')
.replace(' ', ' ')
.replace(/[^\S\r\n][^\S\r\n]+/ig, ' ')
);
As another answer suggested, use JSDOM, but you don't need jQuery. Try this:
JSDOM.fragment(sourceHtml).textContent