tmux to html

Posted: September 05, 2025
Category: (none)

For a post about org-mode kombucha I've been exporting my terminal content to html.

With tmux and ascii2html (there are multiple programs with that name, here I refer to the one part of Debian's colorized-logs: apt install colorized-logs), this is a breeze.

  1. Resize a given pane to the desired size: :resize-pane -x 80 -y 24.
  2. Export its content to html: :run-shell "tmux capture-pane -e -p | ansi2html".

I improved the html export a bit, by removing the headers and footer (as I insert the export on existing web pages), and attempting some best-effort substitution of default colors to use those of my terminal configuration. I ended up with the following tmux configuration entry:

bind-key e run-shell "tmux capture-pane -e -p | ansi2html --no-header --no-wrap | sed -e 's/#aa0/#ebcb8b/g' -e 's/#55f/#81a1c1/g' -e 's/#f55/#bf616a/g' -e 's/#ff5/#ebcb8b/g' -e 's/#5f5/#a3be8c/g' -e 's/#00a/#81a1c1/g' -e 's/#55ffff/#88c0d0/g' -e 's/#0a0/#a3be8c/g' | xclip -i -sel c -f"

Since I'm writing this post currently in a tmux pane, here's what I obtain:

  ++++++++++++ ++++++          │---
  +          + +    +          │title: tmux to html
  +          + +    +          │icon: 💾
  +          + +    +          │---
  +          + +    +          │
  +          + ++++++          │<style>
  +          +                 │body {
  +          +  Shapes: 00013  │    background: rgba(237, 220, 66, 0.5);
  +          +  Rows:   00002  │}
  +          +  Score:  00083  │pre.terminal {
  +          +                 │    background-color: #2e3440;
  +          +                 │    font-size: 0.9em;
  +          +                 │    line-height: 1;
  +          +                 │}
  +          +                 │pre.terminal code {
  +          +                 │    white-space: pre;
  +          +                 │}
  +          +                 │</style>
  +          +                 │
  +          +                 │For [a post about org-mode kombucha]({% 
  +          +                 │post_url 2025-09-04-org-mode-kombucha %}) I've
  ++++++++++++                 │been
  1: 0R-*Tetris*               │  1: 0 -2025-09-05-tmux-to-html.md

Some things are missing and colors are not all perfectly rendered, but it's a good approximation and it helps a lot sharing terminal content on the web.

Credits to the following posts which contain more details: