md2amb utilities

This repository contains command line helpers for transforming Markdown into formats that work well on retro hardware or constrained text viewers.

Tools

• md2amb.py – converts Markdown into Amber-screen formatted text (see script for details).
• md2txt.py – converts Markdown into 80-column, DOS-compatible plain text with extensive formatting support:
  • FIGlet-rendered headings (H1–H3) driven by optional YAML frontmatter (h1_font, h2_font, h3_font).
  • H4+ headings rendered in uppercase with dashed underlines.
  • Emphasis styles converted to spaced or delimited characters, e.g. **bold** → B O L D, __strong__ → _s_t_r_o_n_g_, ~~strike~~ → ~s~t~r~i~k~e~.
  • Blockquotes prefixed by |    , lists preserved, inline code untouched.
  • Code blocks numbered (01 | line), with both fenced and indented fences supported.
  • Links transformed into [label](n) references, with footnote-style URL list at the end.
  • Optional alignment and margin controls via HTML <p> attributes or MultiMarkdown attribute blocks (e.g. {:.center margin=20px}) applied as leading spaces.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+.
• Optional: PyHyphen (preferred) or pyphen for dictionary-driven hyphenation.
• Optional: pyfiglet for FIGlet headings (pip install pyfiglet). When unavailable, headings fall back to the H4-style renderer automatically.

Usage

python md2txt.py input.md -o output.txt          # convert to DOS-friendly text
python md2txt.py input.md                         # write result to stdout
python md2txt.py input.md --width 72             # override column width

Both scripts accept --help for the full option list.

FIGlet Fonts via Frontmatter

You can set FIGlet fonts for H1–H3 per document using YAML frontmatter:

---
h1_font: slant
h2_font: standard
h3_font: small
margin_left: 4
margin_right: 4
hyphenate: true
hyphen_lang: en_US
---

# Main Title
## Section Heading
### Subsection

Font names also accept the special keywords caps (force uppercase) and title (title case) for any heading. margin_left and margin_right add leading/trailing spaces to body text, paragraph_spacing (or lines_between_paragraphs) inserts blank lines between paragraphs, enabling hyphenate activates PyHyphen-based wrapping (optional hyphen_lang defaults to en_US), and header_spacing controls how many blank lines precede headings (default 2). Set figlet_fallback: true to force an H4-style fallback when a FIGlet banner would overflow; when omitted (the default), the banner is kept even if it extends beyond the width.

Styling via Attribute Blocks

You can influence alignment and margins in the source Markdown using either HTML paragraphs or MultiMarkdown attribute blocks:

<p align="center" style="margin: 10px 20px;">
Centered paragraph with custom margins.
</p>

Paragraph styled via MMD attributes.
{: .right margin=12px }

## Centered Heading {: .center margin=8px }

Margins are interpreted as spaces; values using px are rounded to the nearest integer, and margin: 0 auto; centers content.

Output Line Endings

Generated text uses CRLF line endings to maintain DOS compatibility.