Ask HN: CLI tool to download webpages and convert to Markdown?

12 points by raytracer 5 years ago | 9 comments

Is there a CLI tool that downloads webpages and converts them to Markdown?

I've just started using Obsidian https://obsidian.md/ and would like a way to save interesting blog posts and articles.

miles 5 years ago |

  curl --silent https://example.com/foo.html | pandoc --from html --to markdown_strict -o foo.md

From Converting HTML to Markdown using Pandoc http://www.cantoni.org/2019/01/27/converting-html-markdown-u...

crazypython 5 years ago | |

I'd like to add that Calibre (ebook-convert on the CLI) has a mode for outputting a .txt file with markdown formatting. It can take HTML as input.

I_complete_me 5 years ago | |

I tried that on a HackerNews page and the content of the output file foo.md was in html.

miles 5 years ago | | |

Sorry, had only tested it on my own site, which worked as expected:

  curl --silent https://tinyapps.org/ | pandoc --from html --to markdown_strict -o index.md

longimanus 5 years ago |

I find Joplin https://joplinapp.org does a good job of producing markdown from web pages and already has sync capability built in. Looks like it would be ideal for working with Obsidian

longimanus 5 years ago | |

Exported my Joplin markdown and opened it up in Obsidian. Works like a dream and the best part is Jopli already has it's own web clipper. Seems like a superb match

dougskinner 5 years ago |

I made this a couple weeks ago: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@dougskinner/markdowner

anandology 5 years ago |

https://github.com/aaronsw/html2text

miles 5 years ago | |

Thank you, Anand. Despite being 8 years old, Aaron's html2text.py worked perfectly to convert the HN homepage to Markdown. His memory (and code) continues to be a blessing!