txt2html - a text to HTML conversion tool

txt2html is a simple tool for converting text files into HTML files. Text files can contain simple formatting and mark-up commands that txt2html converts into HTML.

txt2html was written by Steve Plimpton. I use it for documentation and WWW pages. Anna Reese added the table formatting options.

See the example.txt and example.html files in the txt2html directory for examples of what all the formatting commands and mark-up syntax end up looking like in HTML.

Syntax:

txt2html file

read from text file, write HTML to standard output

txt2html file1 file2 file3 ...

read each argument as text file, write one HTML file per argument

Input files are first opened with the specified name. If that fails, a ".txt" suffix is added. Output files are created with an ".html" suffix, which is either added or replaces the ".txt" suffix.

Compiling:

The source for txt2html is a single C++ file. Compile it by typing:

g++ -o txt2html txt2html.cpp 

How the tool works:

txt2html reads a text file, one paragraph at a time. A paragraph ends with:

• a blank line
• a line whose final word starts with ":" (a format string)
• the end of the file

Any line in the paragraph which ends with "\" is concatenated to the following line by removing the "\" character and following newline. This can be useful for some of the formatting commands described below that operate on individual lines in the paragraph.

If a paragraph starts with a "<" character and ends with a ">" character, it is treated as raw HTML and is written directly into the output file.

If a paragraph does not end with a format string, then it is surrounded with HTML paragraph markers (<P> and </P>), mark-up is performed, and the paragraph is written to the output file.

If the paragraph ends with a format string, then formatting is performed, mark-up is performed, and the paragraph is written to the output file.

A format string is the last word of a paragraph if it starts with a ":" character. A format string contains one or more comma-separated commands, like ":ulb,l" or ":c,h3". Note that a format string cannot contain spaces, else it would not be the last word. An individual command can have 0 or more arguments:

• b or line() = 0 arguments
• image(file) = 1 argument
• link(alias,value) = 2 or more comma-separated arguments

Format commands add HTML markers at the beginning or end of the paragraph and individual lines. Commands are processed in the order they appear in the format string. Thus if two commands add HTML markers to the beginning of the paragraph, the 2nd command's marker will appear 2nd. The reverse is true at the end of the paragraph; the 2nd command's marker will appear 1st. Some comands, like line or image make most sense if used as stand-alone commands without an accompanying paragraph.

Commands that format the entire paragraph:

• p --> surround the paragraph with <P> </P>
• b --> put <BR> at the end of the paragraph
• pre --> surround the paragraph with <PRE> </PRE>
• c --> surround the paragraph with <CENTER> </CENTER>
• h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 --> surround the paragraph with <H1> </H1>, etc

Commands that format the lines of the paragraph as a list:

• ul --> surround the paragraph with <UL> </UL>, put <LI> at start of every line
• ol --> surround the paragraph with <OL> </OL>, put <LI> at start of every line
• dl --> surround the paragraph with <DL> </DL>, alternate <DT> and <DD> at start of every line

Commands that treat the paragraph as one entry in a list:

• l --> put <LI> at the beginning of the paragraph
• dt --> put <DT> at the beginning of the paragraph
• dd --> put <DD> at the beginning of the paragraph
• ulb --> put <UL> at the beginning of the paragraph
• ule --> put </UL> at the end of the paragraph
• olb --> put <OL> at the beginning of the paragraph
• ole --> put </OL> at the end of the paragraph
• dlb --> put <DL> at the beginning of the paragraph
• dle --> put </DL> at the end of the paragraph

Commands applied to each line of the paragraph:

• all(p) --> surround each line with <P> </P>
• all(c) --> surround each line with <CENTER> </CENTER>
• all(b) --> append a <BR> to each line
• all(l) --> prepend a <LI> to each line

Special commands (all HTML is inserted at beginning of paragraph):

• line --> insert a horizontal line = <HR>
• image(file) --> insert an image = <IMG SRC = "file">
• image(file,link) --> insert an image that when clicked on goes to link
• link(name) --> insert a named link that can be referred to elsewhere (see mark-up) = <A NAME = "name"></A>
• link(alias,value) --> define a link alias that can be used elsewhere in this file (see mark-up)

Table command:

• tb(c=3,b=5,w=100%,a=c) --> format the paragraph as a table

Arguments within tb() can appear in any order and are all optional, since they each have default values.

• c=N --> Make an N-column table. Treat the paragraph as one long list of entries (separated by the separator character) and put them into N columns one after the other. If N = 0, treat each line of the paragraph as one row of the table with as many columns as there are maximum entries in any line. Default is c=0.
• s=: --> Use the character string following the equal sign as the separator between entries. Default separator is a comma "," which you cannot specify directly since the comma delimits the tb() arguments
• b=N --> Create a border N pixels wide. If N is 0, there is no border between or outside the cells. If N is 1, there is a minimal border between and outside all cells. For N > 1, the border between cells does not change but the outside border gets wider. Default is b=1.
• w=N or w=N% --> The first form makes each cell of the table at least N pixels wide. The second form makes the entire table take up N% of the width of the browser window. Default is w=0 which means each cell will be just as wide as the text it contains.
• a=X --> Align the entire table at the left, center, or right of the browser window, for X = "l", "c", or "r". Default is a=c.
• ea=X --> Align the text in each entry at the left, center, or right of its cell, for X = "l", "c", or "r". Default is browser's default (typically left).
• eva=X --> Vertically align the text in each entry at the top, middle, baseline, or bottom of its cell, for X = "t", "m", "ba", or "bo". Default is browser's default (typically middle).
• cwM=N or cwM=N% --> The first form makes column M be at least N pixels wide. The second form makes column M take up N% of the width of the browser window. This setting overrides the "w" argument for column M. Only one column per table can be tweaked with this argument. Default is no settings for any column.
• caM=X --> Align the text in each entry of column M at the left, center, or right of its cell, for X = "l", "c", or "r". This setting overrides the "ea" argument for column M. Only one column per table can be tweaked with this argument. Default is no settings for any column.
• cvaM=X --> Vertically align the text in each entry of column m at the top, middle, baseline, or bottom of its cell, for X = "t", "m", "ba", or "bo". This setting overrides the "eva" argument for column M. Only one column per table can be tweaked with this argument. Default is no settings for any column.

The text of the paragraph is scanned for special mark-up characters which are converted into HTML.

Bold and italic characters:

• "[" (left brace) --> turn-on bold by inserting a <B>
• "]" (right brace) --> turn-off bold by inserting a </B>
• "{" (left bracket) --> turn-on italics by inserting a <I>
• "}" (right bracket) --> turn-off italics by inserting a </I>

Links are inserted by enclosing a section of text in double quotes, and appending an underscore to the ending quote, followed by the link. The link ends when whitespace is found, except that trailing punctuation characters (comma, period, semi-colon, colon, question mark, exclamation point, parenthesis) are not considered part of the link.

A link of the form "text"_link becomes <A HREF = "link">text</A> in the HTML output. The only exception is if "link" is defined elsewhere in the file as an alias (see the link command above). In that case, the value is used instead of the alias name.

With these rules, links can take several forms.

• "This links"_#abc to another part of this file which is labeled with a :link(abc) command.
  
• "This links"_other.html to another file named other.html.
  
• "This links"_other.html#abc to another file which has an "abc" location defined internally.
  
• "This links"_http://www.google.com to a WWW site.
  
• "This"_M12 could be used in place of any of the above forms. It requires an alias like :link(M12,http://www.google.com) to be defined elsewhere in the file.