Installing HTMLTidy for Mac OS X/Snow Leopard

The latest HTML Tidy has much goodness that the version that ships with Snow Leopard is missing. You’ll need to compile it to update your binary. It’s simple after you’ve done it once and easy to forget, so I’m documenting it this time.

1. Test version
   1. Load Terminal
   2. tidy –version
      1. “HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 31 October 2006 – Apple Inc. build 15.3″
      2. No good, should say at least “HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 25 March 2009″
2. Download the source code:
   1. cd to a directory you can track for cleanupcvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy co -P tidy
   2. cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy login
      • Hit the enter key for password, i.e., no password
   3. cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy co -P tidy
      • This will create a directory, “tidy” in your current directory
3. Compile
   1. cd into the tidy directory
   2. /bin/sh build/gnuauto/setup.sh
   3. sudo ./configure –prefix=/usr
   1. Reader Stephanie recommends adding “–with-shared // at least on Lion”
   4. sudo make
   5. sudo make install
      • If you error, may the Google search engine be your best friend.
4. Test version
   1. tidy –version
      • HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 25 March 2009
5. Delete the “tidy” directory
   1. Wow that was easy.