gem install html_to_plain_text

A simple gem that provide code to convert HTML into a plain text alternative. Line breaks from HTML block level elements will be maintained. Lists and tables will also maintain a little bit of formatting.

• Line breaks will be approximated using the generally established default margins for HTML tags (i.e. <p>

tag generates two line breaks, <div> generates one)

• Lists items will be numbered or bulleted with an asterisk

• 
  tags will add line breaks

• <hr> tags will add a string of hyphens to serve as a horizontal rule

• <table> elements will enclosed in “|” delimiters

• <a> tags will have the href URL appended to the text in parentheses

• Formatting tags like <strong> or <b> will be stripped

• Formatting inside <pre> or <plaintext> elements will be honored

• Code-like tags like <script> or <style> will be stripped

require 'html_to_plain_text'
html = "<h1>Hello</h1><p>world!</p>"
HtmlToPlainText.plain_text(html)
=> "Hello\n\nworld!"