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TEXTUTIL(1)               BSD General Commands Manual              TEXTUTIL(1)

NAME
     textutil -- text utility

SYNOPSIS
     textutil [command_option] [other_options] file ...

DESCRIPTION
     textutil can be used to manipulate text files of various formats, using the mechanisms provided by the
     Cocoa text system.

     The first argument indicates the operation to perform, one of:

     -help         Show the usage information for the command and exit.  This is the default command option
                   if none is specified.

     -info         Display information about the specified files.

     -convert fmt  Convert the specified files to the indicated format and write each one back to the file
                   system.

     -cat fmt      Read the specified files, concatenate them, and write the result out as a single file in
                   the indicated format.

                   fmt is one of:  txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, wordml, odt, or webarchive

     There are some additional options for general use:

     -extension ext  Specify an extension to be used for output files (by default, the extension will be
                     determined from the format).

     -output path    Specify the file name to be used for the first output file.

     -stdin          Specify that input should be read from stdin rather than from files.

     -stdout         Specify that the first output file should go to stdout.

     -encoding IANA_name | NSStringEncoding
                     Specify the encoding to be used for plain text or HTML output files (by default, the
                     output encoding will be UTF-8).  NSStringEncoding refers to one of the numeric values
                     recognized by NSString.  IANA_name refers to an IANA character set name as understood
                     by CFString.  The operation will fail if the file cannot be converted to the specified
                     encoding.

     -inputencoding IANA_name | NSStringEncoding
                     Force all plain text input files to be interpreted using the specified encoding (by
                     default, a file's encoding will be determined from its BOM).  The operation will fail
                     if the file cannot be interpreted using the specified encoding.

     -format fmt     Force all input files to be interpreted using the indicated format (by default, a
                     file's format will be determined from its contents).

     -font font      Specify the name of the font to be used for converting plain to rich text.

     -fontsize size  Specify the size in points of the font to be used for converting plain to rich text.

     --              Specify that all further arguments are file names.

     There are some additional options for HTML and WebArchive files:

     -noload          Do not load subsidiary resources.

     -nostore         Do not write out subsidiary resources.

     -baseurl url     Specify a base URL to be used for relative URLs.

     -timeout t       Specify the time in seconds to wait for resources to load.

     -textsizemultiplier x
                      Specify a numeric factor by which to multiply font sizes.

     -excludedelements (tag1, tag2, ...)
                      Specify which HTML elements should not be used in generated HTML (the list should be a
                      single argument, and so will usually need to be quoted in a shell context).

     -prefixspaces n  Specify the number of spaces by which to indent nested elements in generated HTML
                      (default is 2).

     There are some additional options for treating metadata:

     -strip        Do not copy metadata from input files to output files.

     -title val    Specify the title metadata attribute for output files.

     -author val   Specify the author metadata attribute for output files.

     -subject val  Specify the subject metadata attribute for output files.

     -keywords (val1, val2, ...)
                   Specify the keywords metadata attribute for output files (the list should be a single
                   argument, and so will usually need to be quoted in a shell context).

     -comment val  Specify the comment metadata attribute for output files.

     -editor val   Specify the editor metadata attribute for output files.

     -company val  Specify the company metadata attribute for output files.

     -creationtime yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ
                   Specify the creation time metadata attribute for output files.

     -modificationtime yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ
                   Specify the modification time metadata attribute for output files.

EXAMPLES
         textutil -info foo.rtf

     displays information about foo.rtf.

         textutil -convert html foo.rtf

     converts foo.rtf into foo.html.

         textutil -convert rtf -font Times -fontsize 10 foo.txt

     converts foo.txt into foo.rtf, using Times 10 for the font.

         textutil -cat html -title "Several Files" -output index.html *.rtf

     loads all RTF files in the current directory, concatenates their contents, and writes the result out as
     index.html with the HTML title set to "Several Files".

DIAGNOSTICS
     The textutil command exits 0 on success, and 1 on failure.

CAUTIONS
     Some options may require a connection to the window server.

HISTORY
     The textutil command first appeared in Mac OS X 10.4.

Mac OS X                       September 9, 2004                      Mac OS X