Power Automate: HTML to Text Action

There are times when HTML is not helpful, being for parsing the text or saving it. Removing HTML tags is a pain; that's why the "HTML to Text" action is a god-send. It removes the HTML tags and presents us with the "raw" text that we can use to do whatever we want. Let's explore it.

Where to find it?

You can find it under Standard.

"Content Conversion"

Here's what it looks like.

Usage

You can use any element to add to the "HTML to text" action. For example, a trigger parameter, variable, Compose, or even provide the raw HTML yourself in the field.

Limitations

There are a few things to keep in mind. First in the conversion and then in the size of the HTML.

Conversion limitations

I'll list them as they are in Microsoft's Reference and then provide some context:

• The max line length is 80 characters; afterward, a line break will follow.
• For link elements that follow the structure, <a href='link'>text</a> the result becomes text text[link]. If text and link are the same, only text will be present.
• Headers (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) are uppercased.
• Heading cells (<th>) are uppercased.
• Empty lines will be trimmed as a space-saving measure.
• Unordered lists will use * as a prefix.
• There will be three spaces between data table columns.
• There will be 0 empty lines between data table rows.
• Links href='#...' will be ignored.
• New lines \n from the input, HTML will be collapsed into space as any other HTML whitespace characters.
• Continuous new lines (\n\n) can leave a stray blank space between them, so the output may look like \n\n \n\n.

These are not limitations per se but notice a pattern in the conversion. For example, the links will be converted to text[link] the markdown reference (some "flavors" of markdown will represent it differently, but this is how Microsoft represents it). The same with the * that represents in markdown an unordered list. This does not mean that the "HTML to text" is converting HTML to markdown, but since you're aware of what will be converted, you can use them to your advantage.

Keep in mind that dropping the formatting and the hyperlinks is by design, not a bug. The action gives you raw text and nothing else, so if you need to keep links or reshape the output, do it afterward with string functions in the next action.

Size limitations

Since HTML files can be pretty significant, Microsoft imposes two limits: a 5 MB cap on the content, and a maximum depth of 70 in the HTML DOM tree. DOM stands for "Document Object Model," and you can think of it this way. So if you have an HTML file, you'll have:

As you can see, it's a tree structure. Inside the text, you can have more links, tables, images, and more. The limit means the tree can only be nested up to 70 levels deep. It may look like a lot, but HTML can get very complex very quickly, so keep this limit in mind if you're not getting all values converted correctly.

One more thing on availability: this connector is no longer offered for new flows in the US Government (GCC and GCC High) or China cloud regions. Flows already using it there will keep working, but you can't add new ones.

Recommendations

Here are some things to keep in mind.

First, convert and then format

As you can notice, the "HTML to Text" allows for the formatting of the value.

I would recommend, though, that you leave it "as is," convert the HTML to text, and in the following action, do the necessary formatting.

It's essential to have the "source" text unchanged. The "HTML to text" action will convert the value that you can refer to in any part of your Flow. This is important because, in the future, you may want to convert the text before you do the formatting, so you have the division of work done already.

Also, it's essential to have only one "step" per action. We're converting the text in this action, enabling us to debug to see if the text was correctly converted. If we apply any formatting, we won't know if the conversion or the formatting made the changes that we see.

Be careful with the limitations

Both file size and DOM branch number can be a problem in complex HTML. Break it down and parse it in sections if you have to. Find a point where you can safely break your HTML into sections, like <br> for example, and then combine all of them in the end.

Don't try to do it yourself

It's complex to parse HTML, so don't try to do it yourself. If you have huge files, break them down and use the "HTML to Text" action to parse them. There are many hidden complexities in parsing HTML, so always defer to the actions to do the heavy lifting for you.

Name it correctly

The name is super important in this case since we're getting information from somewhere. It's important to know where it comes from and what it is. Always build the name so that other people can understand what you are using without opening the action and checking the details.

Always add a comment

Adding a comment will also help to avoid mistakes. Indicate where the HTML comes from and what you are expecting to get. It's essential to enable faster debugging when something goes wrong.

Always deal with errors

Have your Flow fail graciously when the file doesn't exist and notify someone that something failed. It's horrible to have failing Flows in Power Automate since they may go unlooked for a while or generate even worse errors. I have a template that you can use to help you make your Flow resistant to issues. You can check all details here.

Final Thoughts

The "HTML to Text" action does one job and does it well. It hands you clean, raw text from messy HTML so you don't have to parse it yourself. Keep the conversion in its own step, mind the size and depth limits, and let the action do the heavy lifting. It's a small action that saves you a lot of headaches.

Back to the Power Automate Action Reference.

Photo by Pankaj Patel on Unsplash