Errors using mdframed and also framed packages with tex4ht to put a frame around text

Question

I googled around, and did not see something about this. I just found out that one gets an error using mdframed with tex4ht.

\documentclass{article}%
\usepackage{mdframed}
\begin{document}
\begin{mdframed}
text
\end{mdframed}
\end{document}

htlatex foo.tex

gives

(/usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/tex/latex/graphics/trig.sty)
(/usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/tex/latex/latexconfig/graphics.cfg))

! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.6 \end{mdframed}

? 

The above compiles with no problem using pdflatex and with latex. So it is clearly an issue with tex4ht. Strange that it compiles ok with latex foo.tex, yet the error above says Latex Error:

Is this a known issue? Anyone knows of a workaround? I would have to try to find alternative to mdframed since I need to compile document using pdflatex and htlatex. I just needed to put a frame around large text blocks that can contain more than one paragraph. I am sure I will find other ways to do this that will also work with tex4ht.

Using texlive 2013, on Linux

Update

Text4ht also failed with packaged framed !

\documentclass{article}%
\usepackage{framed}
\begin{document}
\begin{framed}
text

test
\end{framed}    
\end{document}

htlatex foo.tex

gives

(/usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/tex/generic/tex4ht/html4-math.4ht))
(./foo.aux)
! You can't use `\prevdepth' in horizontal mode.
\nointerlineskip ->\prevdepth 
                              -\@m \p@ 
l.8 \end{framed}

? 

May be putting frame around text with tex4ht can not be done. Will keep trying....

Answer 1

The support for framed and mdframed packages has been recently added to tex4ht, the changes will be distributed with TeXLive 2017. You can test the configuration for mdframed with the following configuration file, mdframed.4ht:

\NewConfigure{mdframed}{2}
\NewConfigure{mdframedstyle}{1}
\newcount\mdf:env:cnt
\def\mdf:id{mdframed-\the\mdf:env:cnt}
\def\mdf@trivlist#1{\global\advance\mdf:env:cnt by1\relax\a:mdframed\a:mdframedstyle}
\def\endmdf@trivlist{\b:mdframed}
 \def\mdf@lrbox#1{}
 \def\endmdf@lrbox{}

\@ifpackageloaded{xcolor}{%
\def\get:xcolorcss#1#2{%
   \expandafter\extractcolorspec\expandafter{#1}{\tsf:color}%
   \expandafter\convertcolorspec\tsf:color{HTML}\tsf:color%
   \edef#2{\#\tsf:color}%
}}{}
    \Configure{mdframed}{%
  \ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{<div class="mdframed" id="\mdf:id">}\par
}{\ifvmode\IgnorePar\fi\EndP\HCode{</div>}\par}

% use fallback macro when xcolor package haven't been loaded
\ifdefined\get:xcolorcss\else\def\get:xcolorcss#1#2{\def#2{#1}}\fi

\Configure{mdframedstyle}{%
  \get:xcolorcss{\mdf@backgroundcolor}\mdf:bgcolor
  \get:xcolorcss{\mdf@linecolor}\mdf:bordercolor
  \get:xcolorcss{\mdf@fontcolor}\mdf:fontcolor
  \def\mdf:border{\ifx\mdfl@linewidth\relax 1px\else\mdfl@linewidth\fi\space solid \mdf:bordercolor}
  \Css{\#\mdf:id{border:\mdf:border; background-color: \mdf:bgcolor; color:\mdf:fontcolor;}}
  \global\let\mdfl@linewidth\relax
}
\Hinput{mdframed}

This configuration redefines some internal mdframed macros which cause the issue and use them to insert the HTML code. There are two configurations, \Configure{mdframed} and \Configure{mdframedstyle}. The first one is used for HTML tag insertion, the second one for configuring the style. Every mdframed environment produces <div> element with unique id, so we can style them individually.

To illustrate that, here is an example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mdframed}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}

some text
\begin{mdframed}[backgroundcolor=yellow!40,linecolor=blue,linewidth=4]
  Colorized frame
\end{mdframed}
some text between
\begin{mdframed}
  Plain frame
\end{mdframed}
another instance
\begin{mdframed}[backgroundcolor=yellow!40,linecolor=blue,linewidth=4]
  Colorized frame
\end{mdframed}
\end{document}

Which produces the following web page:

Answer 2

Use \fbox but include the text in a minipage. The following compiles Ok with tex4ht and produces the required frame around the text. The options for minipage can be adjusted as needed.

\documentclass{article}%    
\begin{document}

\fbox{
\begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
line 1

line 2

line 3
\end{minipage}
}     
\end{document}