Link2Text – AI Content Generator

Turn tech/AI articles into WhatsApp-ready content with proper formatting, minimal emoji use, and relevant cover images. Choose between ChatGPT (premium) and Mistral (free) models.

Features

• URL processing and direct text input
• AI model selection: ChatGPT (premium) or Mistral (free)
• Optional web search enrichment (references) with Mistral
• Dynamic cover images via OpenGraph + Bing Images fallback
• WhatsApp-friendly formatting with minimal emojis
• One-click copy and share to WhatsApp
• Simple Basic Auth gate on ChatGPT usage

Quick start (local)

1. Install dependencies

• Windows (PowerShell)

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

• macOS/Linux

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Set environment variables (in the current shell) and run

• PowerShell

$env:OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."
$env:MISTRAL_API_KEY = "mistral-..."
python main.py

• Bash

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."
export MISTRAL_API_KEY="mistral-..."
python main.py

3. Open the app

• Visit: http://127.0.0.1:5000
• Select model and generate content

Environment variables

• OPENAI_API_KEY (required for ChatGPT)
• MISTRAL_API_KEY (required for Mistral)
• BING_API_KEY (optional; improves image results, otherwise uses a fallback scraper)

API

• Base URL: /api
• Endpoint: POST /api/process
• Request bodies:
  • URL mode

    { "url": "https://example.com/article", "model": "chatgpt" , "use_web_search": false }

  • Text mode

    { "text": "...", "title": "Optional", "model": "mistral", "use_web_search": false }

  • Format-only (Mistral)

    { "text": "...", "title": "Optional", "format_only": true }

• Headers (ChatGPT only):
  • Authorization: Basic base64
• Response:

  {
    "formatted_content": "...",
    "image_urls": ["..."],
    "title": "...",
    "keywords": ["..."],
    "source_url": "..."
  }

Deployment

Backend (Render/Railway/VM)

• Start command: gunicorn main:app
• Env vars: OPENAI_API_KEY, MISTRAL_API_KEY, optional BING_API_KEY
• Ensure outbound internet is allowed

Frontend (Netlify)

• Publish directory: Static
• No build command required
• Configure API proxy:
  • netlify.toml and Static/_redirects contain placeholder https://YOUR-BACKEND-DOMAIN
  • Replace with your backend URL, e.g., https://link2text-api.onrender.com
• SPA fallback is already configured

Project structure

Link-2-text/
├─ main.py                 # Flask app, serves Static/ and /api
├─ Routes/
│  ├─ __init__.py
│  ├─ api.py               # API routes, ChatGPT auth gate
│  ├─ web_search.py        # Web search helpers for enrichment
│  └─ bing_search.py       # Image search + fallback
├─ Static/
│  ├─ index.html           # Frontend UI (Bootstrap + jQuery)
│  └─ _redirects           # Netlify redirects/proxy rules
├─ requirements.txt        # Python deps (incl. lxml_html_clean)
├─ netlify.toml            # Netlify config (publish + proxy + SPA)
└─ README.md

Notes

• newspaper3k requires lxml_html_clean; included in requirements.txt.
• NLTK downloads punkt and stopwords on first run.
• CORS is enabled for /api/* to allow frontend hosting on Netlify.

License

MIT