textutil

Manipulate text files in various formats.

Syntax
       textutil -info [options] file ...

       textutil -convert fmt [options] file ...

       textutil -cat fmt [options] file ...

       textutil -help [options] file ...

Key
     -info         Display information about the specified files.

     -convert fmt  Convert the files to format fmt and write each one 
                   back to the file system.

     -cat fmt      Read the specified files, concatenate them, and write the
                   result out as a single file in the indicated format.

     -help         Show usage information and exit.

     fmt           fmt is one of:  txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, wordml, odt, or webarchive

Options

     -encoding IANA_name | NSStringEncoding
                     The encoding to be used for plain text or HTML output
                     (by default, the output encoding will be UTF-8).

     -extension ext  Specify an extension to be used for output files (by
                     default, the extension will be determined from the format).

     -format fmt     Force all input files to be interpreted using the indicated 
                     format (by default, a file’s format will be determined from
                     its contents).

     -font font      The font to be used when converting to rich text.

     -fontsize size  Font size (in points) to be used for converting plain to rich text.

     -inputencoding IANA_name | NSStringEncoding
                     Force all plain text input files to be interpreted using
                     the specified encoding (by default, a file’s encoding
                     will be determined from its BOM).

     -output path    The file name to be used for the first output file.

     -stdout         Send the first output file to stdout.

     --              Specify that all further arguments are file names.

Additional options for HTML and WebArchive files:

     -noload          Do not load subsidiary resources.
     -nostore         Do not write out subsidiary resources.
     -baseurl url     Specify a base URL to be used for relative URLs.
     -timeout t       The time in seconds to wait for resources to load.
     -textsizemultiplier x   A numeric factor by which to multiply font sizes.
     -excludedelements (tag1, tag2, ...)
                      Specify which HTML elements should not be used in generated 
                      HTML (the list should be a single argument, and so will
                      usually need to be quoted in a shell context).
     -prefixspaces n  The number of spaces by which to indent nested
                      elements in generated HTML (default is 2).

Additional options for the output file metadata:

     -strip        Do not copy metadata from input files to output files.
     -title val    The title metadata attribute for output files.
     -author val   The author metadata attribute for output files.
     -subject val  The subject metadata attribute for output files.
     -keywords (val1, val2, ...)
                   The keywords metadata attribute for output files
                   (the list should be a single argument, and so will usually
                   need to be quoted in a shell context).

     -comment val  The comment metadata attribute for output files.
     -editor val   The editor metadata attribute for output files.
     -company val  The company metadata attribute for output files.
     -creationtime yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ
                   The creation time metadata attribute for output files.
     -modificationtime yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ
                   The modification time metadata attribute for output files.

Textutil first appeared in OS X 10.4
The textutil command exits 0 on success, and 1 on failure.
Some options may require a connection to the window server.

Examples

Display information about foo.rtf:

$ textutil -info foo.rtf

Convert foo.rtf into foo.html:

$ textutil -convert html foo.rtf

Convert a Word document windevcluster.docx into HTML - windevcluster.html:

$ textutil -convert html windevcluster.docx

Convert foo.txt into foo.rtf, using Times 10 for the font:

$ textutil -convert rtf -font Times -fontsize 10 foo.txt

Load all RTF files in the current directory, concatenate their contents, and write the result out as index.html with the HTML title set to Several Files":

$ textutil -cat html -title "Several Files" -output index.html *.rtf

Create a .txt file from each .docx Word document file in the directory:

$ textutil -convert txt *.docx

“A lot of people are afraid to say what they want, that’s why a lot of people don’t get what they want” ~ Madonna

Related macOS commands

Local man page: textutil - Command line help page on your local machine.
GetFileInfo - Get attributes of HFS+ files.
pr - Convert text files for printing.
say - Convert text to audible speech.
setfile - Set attributes of HFS+ files.
sips - Scriptable image processing system.