How do I extract text from a web page URL?

POST to https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract?url= with your API key in the Authorization header. txtfetch fetches the page server-side and returns { "status": "success", "extracted_text": "..." }.

Does it strip navigation, ads, and boilerplate?

It strips markup, not boilerplate. Tika's HTML parser removes scripts, styles, and tags. But nav, footer, and cookie-banner text is still text, so it comes back in the response like any other paragraph. Deciding what's chrome versus article is a deliberate, caller-side step. See /tools/html-to-text for a free tool that shows you exactly what your pages' chrome looks like before you index them.

Can I upload a local .html file instead of a URL?

Yes. The same endpoint accepts a multipart file upload for local HTML files, same as any other format.

Any web page, fetched and reduced to clean text.

Pass a URL, not a file. txtfetch fetches the page server-side and hands back clean text, with the markup, scripts, and styles gone. Deciding what's chrome (nav, ads, cookie banners) versus article is a caller-side call. See the free tool below to check yours.

the-problem

Turning a web page into usable text usually means standing up a scraper. You fetch the HTML yourself, strip scripts and styles, and guess at which <div> is the actual content versus navigation and ads. You also handle redirects and encoding along the way. That's infrastructure most teams don't want to own just to get plain text into a RAG index.

one-request-solution

Skip the fetch-and-strip pipeline. Pass a url parameter to txtfetch, and it retrieves the page server-side, runs it through Apache Tika's HTML parser, and returns clean plain text. No headless browser, no boilerplate code to maintain.

curl

curl -X POST https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TXTFETCH_KEY" \
  -F file=@landing-page.html

Python

import os
import requests

with open("landing-page.html", "rb") as f:
    r = requests.post(
        "https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['TXTFETCH_KEY']}"},
        files={"file": f},
    )

print(r.json()["extracted_text"])

JavaScript

import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";

const file = new Blob([await readFile("landing-page.html")]);
const form = new FormData();
form.append("file", file, "landing-page.html");

const res = await fetch("https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TXTFETCH_KEY}` },
  body: form,
});

const { extracted_text } = await res.json();
console.log(extracted_text);

package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"mime/multipart"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

type extractResponse struct {
	Status        string `json:"status"`
	ExtractedText string `json:"extracted_text"`
}

func main() {
	f, err := os.Open("landing-page.html")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer f.Close()

	var body bytes.Buffer
	writer := multipart.NewWriter(&body)
	part, err := writer.CreateFormFile("file", "landing-page.html")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	if _, err := io.Copy(part, f); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	writer.Close()

	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract", &body)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("TXTFETCH_KEY"))
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", writer.FormDataContentType())

	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var result extractResponse
	if err := json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&result); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(result.ExtractedText)
}

Or skip the download. Pass a url parameter and txtfetch fetches the document server-side:

curl

curl -X POST "https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract?url=https://example.com/blog/2024-annual-report" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TXTFETCH_KEY"

Python

import os
import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['TXTFETCH_KEY']}"},
    params={"url": "https://example.com/blog/2024-annual-report"},
)

print(r.json()["extracted_text"])

JavaScript

const endpoint = new URL("https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract");
endpoint.searchParams.set("url", "https://example.com/blog/2024-annual-report");

const res = await fetch(endpoint, {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TXTFETCH_KEY}` },
});

const { extracted_text } = await res.json();
console.log(extracted_text);

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	"net/url"
	"os"
)

type extractResponse struct {
	Status        string `json:"status"`
	ExtractedText string `json:"extracted_text"`
}

func main() {
	endpoint, err := url.Parse("https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	q := endpoint.Query()
	q.Set("url", "https://example.com/blog/2024-annual-report")
	endpoint.RawQuery = q.Encode()

	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", endpoint.String(), nil)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("TXTFETCH_KEY"))

	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var result extractResponse
	if err := json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&result); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(result.ExtractedText)
}

{
  "status": "success",
  "extracted_text": "..."
}

what-comes-back

That is the shape. This is the text. A real .html from the benchmark corpus, word-diffed against the raw parser output. Nothing here was written for this page. Every character comes from a committed fixture.

txtfetch Pricing Page (HTML)

pricing.html · text/html · left pane read via Apache Tika, right pane: the human-checked expected.json

raw parser output

Pricing

Turn any document into clean plain text over a simple HTTP API.

pricing tiers diagram

Plans

Plan	Price	Quota
Hobby	$0	500 docs/mo
Developer	$19	10,000 docs/mo
Scale	$99	100,000 docs/mo

Questions? Use the contact form & skip the 'support' email.

the human-checked ideal

Pricing

Turn any document into clean plain text over a simple HTTP API.

pricing tiers diagram

Plans

Plan	Price	Quota
Hobby	$0	500 docs/mo
Developer	$19	10,000 docs/mo
Scale	$99	100,000 docs/mo

Questions? Use the contact form & skip the 'support' email.

See all ten documents, with the full explanation →

formats-covered

.html
.htm
.xhtml

faq

How do I extract text from a web page URL?: POST to https://api.txtfetch.com/v1/extract?url=<page-url> with your API key in the Authorization header. txtfetch fetches the page server-side and returns { "status": "success", "extracted_text": "..." }.
Does it strip navigation, ads, and boilerplate?: It strips markup, not boilerplate. Tika's HTML parser removes scripts, styles, and tags. But nav, footer, and cookie-banner text is still text, so it comes back in the response like any other paragraph. Deciding what's chrome versus article is a deliberate, caller-side step. See /tools/html-to-text for a free tool that shows you exactly what your pages' chrome looks like before you index them.
Can I upload a local .html file instead of a URL?: Yes. The same endpoint accepts a multipart file upload for local HTML files, same as any other format.

go-further

Web & data

Send a real .html through it.

One HTTP call returns the text. Read one in your browser first, for free.

Get an API key →

Open the free .html reader →