From 854524967e889ddbf2fb54c2c2705c713d8738ef Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nate Ijams <nate@ijams.me>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2025 11:46:35 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?=F0=9F=8E=A8=20Removed=20extra=20new=20lines=20?=
 =?UTF-8?q?and=20improved=20header=20formatting=20in=20plain=20text.?=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

see https://forum.ghost.org/t/unnecessary-and-excessive-newlines-in-plain-text-part-of-newsletters/60267/
see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Techniques/text/T3

- Previously relied on presence of \n in source HTML.
- Now sets reasonable new lines based on HTML elements.
- Formats headers using WCAG 2.2 Techniques suggestions
- Tests added for all changes.
---
 .../lib/html-to-plaintext.js                  | 10 ++++++-
 .../test/html-to-plaintext.test.js            | 30 +++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/packages/html-to-plaintext/lib/html-to-plaintext.js b/packages/html-to-plaintext/lib/html-to-plaintext.js
index 76f6d96b4..6013e6689 100644
--- a/packages/html-to-plaintext/lib/html-to-plaintext.js
+++ b/packages/html-to-plaintext/lib/html-to-plaintext.js
@@ -61,11 +61,19 @@ const loadConverters = () => {
     });
 
     const emailSettings = mergeSettings({
+        preserveNewlines: false,
         selectors: [
             // equiv hideLinkHrefIfSameAsText: true
             {selector: 'a', options: {hideLinkHrefIfSameAsText: true}},
             // Don't include html .preheader in email
-            {selector: '.preheader', format: 'skip'}
+            {selector: '.preheader', format: 'skip'},
+            {selector: 'p', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 2, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h1', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h2', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h3', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h4', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h5', options: {leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}},
+            {selector: 'h6', options: {uppercase: false, leadingLineBreaks: 3, trailingLineBreaks: 1}}
         ]
     });
 
diff --git a/packages/html-to-plaintext/test/html-to-plaintext.test.js b/packages/html-to-plaintext/test/html-to-plaintext.test.js
index 7a5c30fd3..7d08e80ec 100644
--- a/packages/html-to-plaintext/test/html-to-plaintext.test.js
+++ b/packages/html-to-plaintext/test/html-to-plaintext.test.js
@@ -88,6 +88,36 @@ describe('Html to Plaintext', function () {
         });
     });
 
+    describe('New lines and format headers', function () {
+        it('Strips excessive new lines and formats headers', function () {
+            const html = '<p>Some ordinary text</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Should not be way far apart from earlier text.</p>';
+            const expected = 'Some ordinary text\n\nShould not be way far apart from earlier text.';
+            const {email} = getEmailandExcert(html);
+            assert.equal(email, expected);
+        });
+
+        it('Check header formatting', function () {
+            const html = '<h1>Header One</h1>\n<p>What should I even write about?</p><p>And more</p><h2>With Header Two</h2><p>What about code?<h3>And Header Three</h3><p>Good bye</p>';
+            const expected = 'Header One\n\nWhat should I even write about?\n\nAnd more\n\n\nWith Header Two\n\nWhat about code?\n\n\nAnd Header Three\n\nGood bye';
+            const {email} = getEmailandExcert(html);
+            assert.equal(email, expected);
+        });
+
+        it('Empty headers return nothing', function () {
+            const html = '<h1></h1>';
+            const expected = '';
+            const {email} = getEmailandExcert(html);
+            assert.equal(email, expected);
+        });
+
+        it('Non-text header contents don’t appear', function () {
+            const html = '<h1>Hello<!--Test-->world</h1>';
+            const expected = 'Helloworld';
+            const {email} = getEmailandExcert(html);
+            assert.equal(email, expected);
+        });
+    });
+
     describe('commentSnippet converter', function () {
         function testConverter({input, expected}) {
             return () => {