HtmlToText VB.NET Reference Documentation

HtmlToText

Current Version: 10.0.0
Requires Chilkat Bundle License

HTML to plain-text conversion component. The internal conversion process is much more sophisticated than can be accomplished with the simple regular-expression freeware codes found in the Internet. This is more than simply removing HTML tags from an HTML document.

Object Creation

Dim obj As New Chilkat.HtmlToText()

Properties

DebugLogFilePath
DebugLogFilePath As String

If set to a file path, causes each Chilkat method or property call to automatically append it's LastErrorText to the specified log file. The information is appended such that if a hang or crash occurs, it is possible to see the context in which the problem occurred, as well as a history of all Chilkat calls up to the point of the problem. The VerboseLogging property can be set to provide more detailed information.

This property is typically used for debugging the rare cases where a Chilkat method call hangs or generates an exception that halts program execution (i.e. crashes). A hang or crash should generally never happen. The typical causes of a hang are:

  1. a timeout related property was set to 0 to explicitly indicate that an infinite timeout is desired,
  2. the hang is actually a hang within an event callback (i.e. it is a hang within the application code), or
  3. there is an internal problem (bug) in the Chilkat code that causes the hang.

More Information and Examples
Example showing how to use DebugLogFilePath.
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DecodeHtmlEntities
DecodeHtmlEntities As Boolean

If True, then HTML entities are automatically decoded. For example & is automatically decoded to &. If this property is set to False, then HTML entities are not decoded. The default value is True.

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LastErrorHtml
LastErrorHtml As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in HTML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

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LastErrorText
LastErrorText As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in plain-text format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

More Information and Examples
Concept of LastErrorTextLastErrorText Standard Information
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LastErrorXml
LastErrorXml As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in XML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

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LastMethodSuccess
LastMethodSuccess As Boolean

Indicate whether the last method call succeeded or failed. A value of True indicates success, a value of False indicates failure. This property is automatically set for method calls. It is not modified by property accesses. The property is automatically set to indicate success for the following types of method calls:

  • Any method that returns a string.
  • Any method returning a Chilkat object, binary bytes, or a date/time.
  • Any method returning a standard boolean status value where success = True and failure = False.
  • Any method returning an integer where failure is defined by a return value less than zero.

Note: Methods that do not fit the above requirements will always set this property equal to True. For example, a method that returns no value (such as a "void" in C++) will technically always succeed.

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RightMargin
RightMargin As Integer

Used to control wrapping of text. The default value is 80. When the text gets close to this margin, the converter will try to break the line at a SPACE character. Set this property to 0 for no right margin.

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SuppressLinks
SuppressLinks As Boolean

If False, then link URL's are preserved inline. For example, the following HTML fragment: 

<p><p>Test <a href="https://www.chilkatsoft.com/">chilkat</a></p>
converts to: 
Test chilkat <https://www.chilkatsoft.com/>
If this property is True, the above HTML would convert to: 
Test chilkat
The default value of this property is True.

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VerboseLogging
VerboseLogging As Boolean

If set to True, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is False. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

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Version
Version As String (ReadOnly)

Version of the component/library, such as "9.5.0.94"

More Information and Examples
How to get the Chilkat version at runtime.
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Methods

ReadFileToString
Function ReadFileToString(ByVal filename As String, ByVal srcCharset As String) As String

Convenience method for reading a text file into a string. The character encoding of the text file is specified by srcCharset. Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.

Returns Nothing on failure

More Information and Examples
Convert HTML to Plain Text
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ToText
Function ToText(ByVal html As String) As String

Converts HTML to plain-text.

Returns Nothing on failure

More Information and Examples
Convert HTML to Plain Text
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ToTextSb
Function ToTextSb(ByVal sb As StringBuilder) As Boolean
Introduced in version 9.5.0.97

Converts the HTML in sb to plain-text.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

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WriteStringToFile
Function WriteStringToFile(ByVal stringToWrite As String, ByVal filename As String, ByVal charset As String) As Boolean

Convenience method for saving a string to a file. The character encoding of the output text file is specified by charset (the string is converted to this charset when writing). Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

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