HTML Markdown works as advertised. This is always the sign of a good program. In a sentence, HTML Markdown is specialized find-and-replace application removing HTML tags from HTML files thus creating plain text files.
HTML Markdown works as advertised. This is always the sign of a good program. In a sentence, HTML Markdown is specialized find-and-replace application removing HTML tags from HTML files thus creating plain text files.
By dragging and dropping any HTML file on to HTML Markdown the application proceeds to remove HTML tags from the document and prompts for the name of an output file. Using any text editor to view the resulting file demonstrates that HTML Markdown has done what you requested with a few minor exceptions and unexpected results.
First, HTML Markdown does not seem to recognize special characters like the greater than (>) or less than (<) sign. Consequently, you may end up with strings like ">" throughout your text. Second, if your HTML document contained multiple, sequential return characters, then the resulting text file will contain these sequences as well. Within HTML, these multiple return characters go unnoticed, but they become blatantly apparent after conversion with HTML Markup.
There are a number of times when you may need a utility like HTML Markdown. One such time is when you want to format an HTML document into a word processing document. While the present WWW browsers will let you save as text, they often insert many hard returns at the end of every line. HTML Markup does not do this. Furthermore, HTML does not try to interpret things like horizontal rulers and list items. This means you have fewer find-and-replace sequences to go through when formatting your converted HTML document to a word processing document.
Eric last edited this page on September 26, 1995. Please feel free to send comments.