util.py

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup, NavigableString


def html_to_text(html):
    "Creates a formatted text email message from a rendered html template (page)"
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'html.parser')
    # Ignore anything in head
    body, text = soup.body, []  # body as string & text as empty list
    if body is None:
        return ""
    else:
        for element in body.descendants:
            # We use type and not isinstance since comments, cdata, etc are subclasses that we don't want
            if type(element) == NavigableString:
                # We use the assumption that other tags can't be inside a script or style
                if element.parent.name in ('script', 'style'):
                    continue
                elif element.parent.name == 'a':
                    # replace link text with the link
                    # text += [element.parent['href']]
                    continue
                # remove any multiple and leading/trailing whitespace
                string = ' '.join(element.string.split())
                if string:
                    if element.parent.name == 'p':
                        # Add extra paragraph formatting newline
                        string = '\n' + string
                    text += [string]
        doc = '\n'.join(text)  # .encode('utf-8')
        return doc