W3M(1)

NAME
w3m - a text based web browser and pager

SYNOPSIS
w3m [OPTION]... [ file | URL ]...

DESCRIPTION
w3m is a text based browser which can display local or remote web pages as well as other documents. It is able to process HTML tables and frames but it ignores JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets. w3m can also serve as a pager for text files named as arguments or passed on standard input, and as a general purpose directory browser. w3m organizes its content in buffers or tabs, allowing easy navigation between them. With the w3m-img extension installed, w3m can display inline graphics in web pages. And whenever w3m's HTML rendering capabilities do not meet your needs, the target URL can be handed over to a graphical browser with a single command. For help with runtime options, press “H” while running w3m.

ARGUMENTS
When given one or more command line arguments, w3m will handle targets according to content type. For web, w3m gets this information from HTTP headers; for relative or absolute file system paths, it relies on filenames. With no argument, w3m expects data from standard input and assumes “text/plain” unless another MIME type is given by the user. If provided with no target and no fallback target (see for instance option -v below), w3m will exit with usage information.

OPTIONS
Command line options are introduced with a single “-” character and may take an argument.

  General options

-B  with no other target defined, use the bookmark page for startup

-H  Deprecated! Do not use! use -o high-intensity=true instead

-M  monochrome display

-no-mouse
    deactivate mouse support

-num
    display each line's number

-N  distribute multiple command line arguments to tabs. By default, a stack of buffers is used

-ppc num
    width of num pixels per character. Range of 4.0 to 32.0, default 8.0. Larger values will make tables narrower. (Implementation not verified)

-ppl num
    height of num pixels per line. Range of 4.0 to 64.0. (Implementation not verified)

-title, -title=TERM
    use the buffer name as terminal title string. With specified TERM, this sets the title configuration style accordingly

-v  with no other target defined, welcome users with a built-in page

-W  toggle wrapping mode in searches

-X  do not initialize/deinitialize the terminal

+num
    go to line num; only effective for num larger than the number of lines in the terminal

  Browser options

-cols num
    HTML is rendered to lines of num characters

-cookie, -no-cookie
    use stored cookies and accept new ones, or do neither

-F  render frames

-graph, -no-graph
    use or do not use graphic characters for drawing HTML table and frame borders

-header string
    append string to the HTTP(S) request. Expected to match the header syntax Variable: Value

-m  Render the body of Usenet messages according to the header “Content-type”

-no-proxy
    do not use proxy

-post file
    use POST method to upload data defined in file. The syntax to be used is var1=value1[&var2=value2]...

-4  IPv4 only. Corresponds to dns_order=4 in configuration files

-6  IPv6 only. Corresponds to dns_order=6 in configuration files

-insecure
    use insecure SSL config options, alias for -o ssl_cipher=ALL:eNULL:@SECLEVEL=0 -o ssl_min_version=all -o ssl_forbid_method= -o ssl_verify_server=0

  Text pager options

-l num
    number of lines preserved internally when receiving plain text from stdin (default 10,000)

-r  use caret notation to display special escape characters (such as ANSI escapes or nroff-style backspaces for bold and underlined characters) instead of processing them

-s  squeeze multiple blank lines into one

-t num
    set tab width to num columns. No effect on stdout

  Data type/encoding options

-I charset
    user defined character encoding of input data

-O charset
    user defined character encoding of output data

-T type
    explicit characterization of input data by MIME type

  Options for data output, followed by immediate exit

-dump
    dump rendered page into stdout. Set implicitly when output is directed to a file or pipe

-dump_source
    dump the page's source code into stdout

-dump_head
    dump response of a HEAD request for a URL into stdout

-dump_both
    dump HEAD, and source code for a URL into stdout

-dump_extra
    dump HEAD, source code, and extra information for a URL into stdout

-help
    show a summary of compiled-in features and command line options

-show-option
    show all available configuration options

-version
    show the version of w3m

  Options for overriding default settings and resources

-bookmark file
    use file instead of the default bookmark.html file

-config file
    use file instead of the default configuration file

-o option=value
    modify one configuration item with an explicitly given value; without option=value, equivalent to -show-option

-debug
    use debug mode (only for debugging)

-reqlog
    log headers of HTTP communication in file ~/.w3m/request.log

  Experimental options
Experimental options might change in the future or even be removed. Feedback to the author is highly welcome.

-R  restore session

-cookie-jar file
    use file instead of the default cookie file

-session file
    use file instead of the default session file

Session management
If -R is given, w3m will restore a session from a session file. If no session file is provided with -session the default session file is used. The default session file will be deleted after restoring a session when exiting w3m. If a session file is given it will not be deleted. If URLs or files were given as parameters they will be loaded after restoring the session and added to the first tab. If -N and -R are given the old session is restored as is and any new buffer are opened in separate tabs. Note: Session management is still an experimental feature and might change in the future!

EXAMPLES

  Pager-like usage

Combine snippets of HTML code and preview the page
        $ cat header.html footer.html | w3m -T text/html

Compare two files using tabs
        $ w3m -N config.old config

  Browser-like usage

Display web content in monochrome terminal
        $ w3m -M http://w3m.sourceforge.net

Display embedded graphics
        $ w3m -o auto_image=TRUE http://w3m.sourceforge.net

Display content from Usenet
        $ w3m -m nntp://news.aioe.org/comp.os.linux.networking

Upload data for a URL using the POST method
        $ w3m -post - http://example.com/form.php <<<'a=0&b=1'

  Filter-like usage

Convert an HTML file to plain text with a defined line length
        $ w3m -cols 40 foo.html > foo.txt

Output the bookmarks page as text with an appended list of links
        $ w3m -B -o display_link_number=1 > out.txt

Conversion of file format and character encoding
        $ w3m -T text/html -I EUC-JP -O UTF-8 < foo.html > foo.txt

  Start with no input

Welcome users with a built-in page
        $ w3m -v

ENVIRONMENT
w3m recognises the environment variable WWW_HOME as defining a fallback target for use if it is invoked without one. If the W3M_DIR environment variable is set to a directory name, w3m will store its user files there instead of under the ~/.w3m directory.

FILES
The default locations of some files are listed below. These locations can be altered via the W3M_DIR environment variable.

~/.w3m/bookmark.html
    default bookmark file

~/.w3m/config
    user defined configuration file; overrides /etc/w3m/config

~/.w3m/cookie
    cookie jar; written on exit, read on launch

~/.w3m/history
    browser history - visited files and URLs

~/.w3m/keymap
    user defined key bindings; overrides default key bindings

~/.w3m/mailcap
    external viewer configuration file

~/.w3m/menu
    user defined menu; overrides default menu

~/.w3m/mime.types
    MIME types file

~/.w3m/mouse
    user defined mouse settings

~/.w3m/passwd
    password and username file

~/.w3m/pre_form
    contains predefined values to fill recurrent HTML forms

SEE ALSO
README and example files are to be found in the doc directory of your w3m installation. Recent information about w3m may be found on the project's web pages at https://w3m-pager.org

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
w3m has incorporated code from several sources. Users have contributed patches and suggestions over time.

AUTHOR
Akinori ITO, and others. This version is maintained by Rene Kita <mail@rkta.de>. Use <~rkta/w3m@lists.sr.ht> to contact the developers.