HTML to Text

Strip HTML tags, scripts, and styles from a string to get clean, readable text.

Most often you need it because an email body, a CRM note or a fetched web page arrived as HTML. The next step wants text a person can read: a Slack message, a spreadsheet cell, a summary.

Keyboard shortcut: t+h

Setting it up

1. Press t+h, or open Tools → Data → Convert in the dock and select HTML to text.
2. In the Input field, pick the HTML from an earlier step.
3. Save the step.

What it passes on

The Step returns the converted text directly, without a ret wrapper. Read the whole string using this Step’s number:

{{ 3.$full_result }}

Run the Step with representative HTML and inspect the converted text in Executions before mapping it downstream.

What it leaves behind

• Styles and scripts. Markup that is not readable text is stripped along with the tags.
• Entities and odd markup. Encoded characters are turned back into the characters they stand for, and imperfectly nested tags do not stop the step.
• Empty input. An empty or missing input produces an empty string.

The exact output for a given page is worth confirming once in the Executions tab rather than predicting it. HTML in the wild varies more than any rule about it does.

Examples to copy

What goes in and what comes out

<h1>Order Confirmation</h1>
<p>Thank you for your order, <strong>Ada</strong>.</p>
<ul>
  <li>Item: Widget Pro</li>
  <li>Quantity: 3</li>
  <li>Total: $89.97</li>
</ul>
<p>
  Visit <a href="https://example.com/track">this link</a> to track your order.
</p>

Illustrative text output:

ORDER CONFIRMATION

Thank you for your order, Ada.

 * Item: Widget Pro
 * Quantity: 3
 * Total: $89.97

Visit this link [https://example.com/track] to track your order.

The conversion uses plain-text headings, paragraph breaks and list markers rather than preserving the page’s visual layout. Inspect the result for your HTML, including links and whitespace.

An email body into Slack

An email trigger gives you the message as HTML. Slack shows the tags rather than the words unless you convert it first.

What to do: add HTML to text after the trigger, set the input to the email’s body field, and put {{ 3.$full_result }} in the Slack step’s message (replacing 3 with this step’s own number).

A page you fetched into an AI step

Convert a fetched HTML page to text before using it as prompt context.

What to do: put HTML to text after HTTP Request. Select the HTML text from Workflow data: {{ 3.ret.data }} for a default text response, or {{ 3.ret.body }} with Include Full Response enabled. Reference the converted text in the prompt.

HTML to Text processes inputs up to 16,777,216 characters (16 MiB) and truncates content beyond that limit.

What’s Next?

• Break the resulting text into a list with Split Text.
• Write a custom parser for more complex extraction using Code editor.