When using the html2text library in Python to convert HTML to plain text, underscores might appear in the output due to the way the library handles certain HTML elements like <em> or <i> (italicized text). To avoid underscores in the output, you can customize the conversion process by modifying the html2text configuration.

Here’s how you can avoid underscores:

1. Use html2text with Custom Configuration

You can configure html2text to use asterisks (*) instead of underscores (_) for emphasis (italicized text).

import html2text

# Create an instance of html2text with custom configuration
h = html2text.HTML2Text()
h.emphasis_mark = '*'  # Use asterisks instead of underscores for emphasis

# Example HTML content
html_content = "<p>This is <em>italic</em> text.</p>"

# Convert HTML to text
text_content = h.handle(html_content)

print(text_content)

Output:

This is *italic* text.

2. Remove Underscores After Conversion

If you cannot avoid underscores during the conversion, you can remove them afterward using Python's string manipulation methods.

import html2text

# Convert HTML to text
html_content = "<p>This is <em>italic</em> text.</p>"
text_content = html2text.html2text(html_content)

# Remove underscores
text_content = text_content.replace('_', '')

print(text_content)

Output:

This is italic text.

3. Use a Different Library

If html2text doesn’t meet your needs, consider using another library like BeautifulSoup for more control over the conversion process.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

html_content = "<p>This is <em>italic</em> text.</p>"
soup = BeautifulSoup(html_content, 'html.parser')

# Extract text without underscores
text_content = soup.get_text()

print(text_content)

Output:

This is italic text.

By customizing html2text or using an alternative library, you can avoid underscores in the output when converting HTML to text.