# Long essays and articles as plain text with word counts

**Use case:** 

Three well-known public essays and articles, each read once and returned as plain text and Markdown with the title, the publication date where the page states one, the headings and the word count. A starting point for a reading list, a summary job or an index of your own articles.

## Input

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html",
    "https://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html",
    "https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html"
  ],
  "fullPage": false,
  "includeLinks": false,
  "includeImages": false,
  "keepTables": true,
  "maxChars": 30000,
  "maxItems": 0,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "onlyNew": false,
  "stateName": "default",
  "notifyWhenEmpty": false,
  "requestIntervalMs": 1000
}
```

## Output

```json
{
  "title": {
    "label": "Page title",
    "format": "string"
  },
  "wordCount": {
    "label": "Words in the extracted text (the whole text, also when it was cut at the character limit)",
    "format": "integer"
  },
  "language": {
    "label": "Language declared by the page (html lang)",
    "format": "string"
  },
  "publishedAt": {
    "label": "Publication date from the page metadata (ISO 8601), or null",
    "format": "string"
  },
  "headings": {
    "label": "Headings of the content, one per line, as \"H2: text\"",
    "format": "string"
  },
  "truncated": {
    "label": "True when the Markdown or the text was cut at the character limit",
    "format": "boolean"
  },
  "finalUrl": {
    "label": "Address that answered, after redirects",
    "format": "string"
  }
}
```

## How it works

### 1. Sign up on Apify or log in

The Website to Markdown Extractor: Clean Text for LLMs and RAG Actor is ready to run with the inputs already set for "Long essays and articles as plain text with word counts". [Sign up or log in](https://console.apify.com/create-task-from-example/Hcpd0CpwwrCfwPoDX) and you'll land in Apify Console with a copy of this exact task.

### 2. Start the "Long essays and articles as plain text with word counts" task

The Website to Markdown Extractor: Clean Text for LLMs and RAG Actor will start running based on the input automatically. You can also change all the input fields, like page urls, whole page instead of main content, and more, to match your specific use case.

### 3. Receive the "Long essays and articles as plain text with word counts" output

Monitor the progress in real time. You will be notified as soon as your dataset is complete and ready for review. Each result includes data such as page title, words in the extracted text (the whole text, also when it was cut at the character limit), language declared by the page (html lang), and more.

### 4. Integrate into your workflow

The final output is delivered in JSON, CSV, or Excel format, ready to be plugged into your workflow. You can also [run the "Long essays and articles as plain text with word counts" task via API](https://apify.com/rowcraft/website-markdown-extractor.md).

## About this Actor

This example demonstrates how to use [Website to Markdown Extractor: Clean Text for LLMs and RAG](https://apify.com/rowcraft/website-markdown-extractor.md) with a specific input configuration. Visit the [Actor detail page](https://apify.com/rowcraft/website-markdown-extractor.md) to learn more, explore other use cases, and run it yourself.


## How to integrate an Actor?

This Task's input is already configured above. Use it as-is rather than inventing a new one.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For full API examples (JavaScript, Python, CLI, MCP, OpenAPI), see this Task's Actor page: https://apify.com/rowcraft/website-markdown-extractor.md

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).