Render HTML to Plain Text

Overview

You send HTML and we give you back the words, laid out so they still read well: headings and paragraphs separated by a blank line, list items on their own line with a marker, table rows flattened, and line breaks respected. Scripts, styles, and elements marked hidden are dropped, and the readable profile also sets aside navigation and footers. No browser is involved, nothing is fetched, and no JavaScript runs, so this is not the place to go for pixel-accurate output. Accepts file input via file_ref — no need to extract file content first.

Stripping tags with a pattern leaves the words run together and the structure gone, and spinning up a browser to read a page is a lot of machinery for text.

When to use it

Scope

Non-goals

• Does not run any JavaScript on the page
• Does not apply CSS, so content hidden by a stylesheet still comes through
• Does not fetch the page or anything it links to
• Does not reproduce a browser's layout, spacing, or column widths

Properties

Capabilities

Cost & billing

Flat rate per invocation

File handling

File limits

Constraints this skill applies to your input and generated files. The “Limited by” column shows the static source of each cap; none of these can be raised by upgrading your plan.

How we handle your data

Input schema

Output schema

API contract

curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/execute" -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"skillKey":"web.render_plaintext","input":{"html":"<p>Hello</p>"}}'

import { Squillify } from "@squillify/sdk";

const sq = new Squillify({ apiKey: process.env.SQUILLIFY_API_KEY });

const { output } = await sq.execute("web.render_plaintext", {"html":"<article><h1>Title</h1><p>Hello<br>world</p></article>"});

Errors

Other limits

Limitations

• Does not run any JavaScript on the page
• Does not apply CSS, so content hidden by a stylesheet still comes through
• Does not fetch the page or anything it links to
• Does not reproduce a browser's layout, spacing, or column widths
• Reproducing how a browser would lay the page out
• Fetching the page — bring the markup with you

How to call

POST /v1/execute (requires authentication)

{
  "skillKey": "web.render_plaintext",
  "input": {
    "html": "<article><h1>Title</h1><p>Hello<br>world</p></article>"
  }
}

Examples

{
  "html": "<article><h1>Title</h1><p>Hello<br>world</p></article>"
}

{
  "_meta": {
    "profile": "readable",
    "truncated": false,
    "renderProfile": "html-plaintext-1"
  },
  "text": "Title\n\nHello\nworld",
  "warnings": [],
  "stats": {
    "links": 0,
    "images": 0,
    "words": 3,
    "blocks": 3,
    "characters": 18
  }
}

{
  "html": "<nav>Menu</nav><p>Body</p>",
  "profile": "all_visible"
}

{
  "_meta": {
    "profile": "all_visible",
    "truncated": false,
    "renderProfile": "html-plaintext-1"
  },
  "text": "Menu\n\nBody",
  "warnings": [],
  "stats": {
    "links": 0,
    "images": 0,
    "words": 2,
    "blocks": 1,
    "characters": 10
  }
}

Recommended use cases

• Shrink a page into text a model can read without the markup noise
• Pull the article out of a saved page and leave the navigation behind
• Produce the plain-text half of an HTML email

Avoid for

• Reproducing how a browser would lay the page out
• Fetching the page — bring the markup with you

Related skills

Composable with

Safety & privacy

• Runs without calling any external service.
• Your payloads are never stored permanently.
• Telemetry captures metadata only — never your payload contents.
• We never train models on your payloads.
• No human reviews your payloads.

Tags