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 →

try-your-own

Drop your own .html file below. Your browser reads it. Nothing uploads, and txtfetch never sees it.

Your browser read this file. No request left your browser, so txtfetch never received it. The API returns this same text as { status, extracted_text }.

See the real API response in the playground. Need many files, a folder, or a .zip? Use file-to-text instead.

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 →