extract2md

extract2md is all about “HTML in → Markdown out.” You can start from a live URL, a file on disk, or an already-loaded HTML string.

It can be used from CLI or as a Python library.

Installation

pip install extract2md

Prerequisites:

• Python 3.10+ runtime
• Node.js (recommended for best results; powers Readability.js content extraction)

CLI usage

1. Fetch a URL and display Markdown

extract2md https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains

2. Fetch and write to a file

extract2md https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains > sample-output.md

3. Convert previously saved HTML (files or stdin)

# convert file
extract2md sample-page.html
# or from stdin
cat sample-page.html | extract2md -

Parameters

Usage: extract2md [OPTIONS] SOURCE

Global

• source: HTTP(S) URL, filesystem path, or - when reading HTML from stdin.

Fetching (URL sources only)

• --ignore-robots: skip robots.txt validation (use sparingly).
• --proxy URL: HTTP(S) proxy forwarded to httpx.
• --timeout SECONDS: request timeout (default 30 seconds).
• --user-agent STRING: override the default identifier.

HTML rewriting

• --rewrite-relative-urls/--no-rewrite-relative-urls: enable or disable rewriting relative href/src attributes to absolute links (default on).
• --base-url URL: optional base URL for rewriting relative URLs (default source).

Conversion

• --converter NAME: choose the HTML conversion backend. Defaults to trafilatura; readability (requires Node.js) is also available.

Environment variables

• EXTRACT2MD_NODE_PATH: Set the EXTRACT2MD_NODE_PATH environment variable to the Node.js binary (or its directory) if Readability.js cannot find node on your PATH.

Python Library usage

extract2md can also be used as a Python library.

1. Fetch a URL and get Markdown

from extract2md import fetch_to_markdown

markdown = fetch_to_markdown("https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains")

2. Convert a previously saved HTML file

from extract2md import file_to_markdown

markdown_from_file = file_to_markdown("sample-page.html")

3. Convert an HTML string you already have

from extract2md import html_to_markdown

html = "<html><body><h1>Offline HTML</h1></body></html>"
markdown_from_html = html_to_markdown(html)

# Optionally disable replacing relative links with absolute URLs
markdown_custom = html_to_markdown(
    html,
    rewrite_relative_urls=False,
)

# Or replace relative links with a custom base URL
markdown_custom = html_to_markdown(
    html,
    rewrite_relative_urls=False,
    base_url="https://example.com/docs/",
)

# Pick an alternate conversion backend (e.g., Readability)
markdown_readability = html_to_markdown(html, converter="readability")

Additional public methods

Need to store markup or run your own converter? Use fetch and skip the Markdown step entirely:

from extract2md import fetch

raw_html, content_type = fetch("https://example.com/docs")

Notes

• The CLI and library both fetch live webpages from URLs; network availability and site rate limits apply.
• Inspired by the Fetch MCP Server.
• Thanks go to these libraries for the heavy lifting:
  • ReadabiliPy with Mozilla's Readability.js Node.js package
  • Markdownify
  • Trafilatura