Copy colorful terminal (emulator) text output and paste as HTML?

Question

I want to write notes (in HTML format) when learning Linux. When I need to note colorful terminal text output, I want the color of terminal text can be remained in my notes, e.g.:

Note 1: Test

The output of xx command is

<pre>
[root@webserver ~]# ll /
total 100
drwxrwxrwt.   7 root root  4096 8月  24 12:22 <span style='background-color:green; color:blue;'>tmp</span>
drwxr-xr-x.  14 root root  4096 7月  19 21:20 <span style='color:blue;'>usr</span>
</pre>

I can manually add HTML code wrapper around the plain text, but I hope there's an automatic way to achieve that.

Currently, I'm using putty on Windows to connect to remote CentOS linux server.

Solution 1

Use the script utility to capture the terminal output to a file (ansi color control characters included) and then convert it to html with ansi2html script. Eg:

inigo:tmp> script
Script started, file is typescript
inigo:tmp> ls
#
# lots of colour output
# 
inigo:tmp> exit
exit
Script done, file is typescript
inigo:tmp> cat typescript  | ansi2html.sh > typescript.html

If using PuTTY, "All session output" login option will also keep the ansi color codes.

As an alternative to ansi2html, you could use aha - Ansi HTML Adapter.

Solution 2

After seven years and nine months, putty still don't support 'Copy as HTML' feature.

I had already turned to Fedora linux as my primary operating system for work for about six years and nine months because of end-of-life of Windows XP.

Now, gnome-terminal v3.x had added 'Copy as HTML' feature for 3 years (git commit GNOME bug report), and it works as what I expected, so I will use gnome-terminal to do this job if I needed. See the screenshots below.

---

GNOME terminal 3.36.1.1 window

---

The HTML code copied from GNOME terminal

<pre><font color="#00D700">root</font> @ <span style="background-color:#005FAF"><font color="#00005F">tx300</font></span> <font color="#00FFFF">/tmp</font> <span style="background-color:#AF00AF"><font color="#FF0A0A">2020-05-29 16:34:00</font></span>
# ls /usr/bin/vi*
<font color="#00FFFF">/usr/bin/vi</font>        <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-alignment-scan</font>      <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-edit</font>            <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-ls</font>            <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-tail</font>
<font color="#00FFFF">/usr/bin/view</font>      <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-builder</font>             <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-filesystems</font>     <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-make-fs</font>       <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-tar-in</font>
<font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/viewres</font>   <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-builder-repository</font>  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-format</font>          <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-manager</font>       <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-tar-out</font>
<font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/vim</font>       <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-cat</font>                 <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virtfs-proxy-helper</font>  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-pki-validate</font>  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-win-reg</font>
<font color="#00FFFF">/usr/bin/vimdiff</font>   <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-copy-in</font>             <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-get-kernel</font>      <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-qemu-run</font>      <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-xml-validate</font>
<font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/vimdot</font>    <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-copy-out</font>            <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-host-validate</font>   <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-rescue</font>        <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/vi.vi</font>
<font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/vimtutor</font>  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-customize</font>           <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-index-validate</font>  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-resize</font>
<font color="#00FFFF">/usr/bin/vimx</font>      <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-df</font>                  <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-inspector</font>       <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-sparsify</font>
<font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virsh</font>     <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-diff</font>                <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-log</font>             <font color="#00D700">/usr/bin/virt-sysprep</font>
<font color="#00D700">root</font> @ <span style="background-color:#005FAF"><font color="#00005F">tx300</font></span> <font color="#00FFFF">/tmp</font> <span style="background-color:#FF87AF"><font color="#8A8A8A">2020-05-29 16:34:03</font></span>
#
</pre>

---

HTML render result (Firefox 76.0.1)

Comments

[Ishikawa Yoshi]

you want to copy data from terminal to buffer and when you paste it in notepad you expected to seen html near color words?

[LiuYan 刘研]

yes, that's what i wanted. i think this can be done in terminal emulator software (translate control characters into HTML), but i don't know if there's such emulator has such function.

[Ishikawa Yoshi]

superuser.com/questions/110902/colored-copy-of-putty-window

[LiuYan 刘研]

thanks for the link, i didn't notice that option before. however that's a slight different question, i want the paste to be HTML code, not rich text format (and my RTF paste seems malformed characters).

[Ishikawa Yoshi]

stackoverflow.com/questions/2033268/linux-shell-output-to-ht‌​ml maybe this link also helps you

[LiuYan 刘研]

maybe i need post a feature request to putty