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I'm using this script:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/11902/Convert-HTML-to-Plain-Text
To convert some outlook HTML to plain text.
It nearly works, the only thing that it leaves behind is the CSS which outlook places in html comment tags <!-- --> in addition to <style> tags (which are removed)
This is the original text:
<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang="EN-GB" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">tesst<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:dimgray;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">JOE BLOGS</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:dimgray;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">
</div>
</body>
</html>
This is the resulting text: (note the HTML comment has not been removed)
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
tesst
JOE BLOGS
I have tried adapting the StripHTML() function with the additional replaces - but these did not work either.
result = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(result, "(<!--).*?(-->)", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
result = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(result, "<!--*-->", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
Please help - this was a 2 minute job that i've been stuck on since lunch facedesk
Cheers
Edit 1: also tried the following - still no joy
result = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(result, "<!--.*-->", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
result = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(result, "<!--.*?-->", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
Edit 2: I noticed this question was getting a lot of views, anyone reading this should definitely think twice about taking the regExp approach, instead i recommend using Lynx (OpenSource text based browser) to convert HTML to plain text, i asked a similar question here and i provide sample code in the edits based on the answers that should get you started using lynx.exe from within a .net application. This is the method we ended up using and haven't had any problems since.
342
Your second regular expression for three reasons:
. to match any character.* is greedy. You want *? to match lazily.RegexOptions.Singleline.Try this:
result = Regex.Replace(result, "<!--.*?-->", "", RegexOptions.Singleline);
I would strongly recommend that you do not use regular expressions to parse HTML. You will save yourself a whole world of pain if you instead use HTML Agility Pack.
145
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