Here's something I did for https://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Display_an_outline_as_a_nested_table#Perl It's not exactly what I think you want, but it may be close.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# http://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Display_an_outline_as_a_nested_table

use strict;
use warnings;

my @rows;
my $row = -1;
my $width = 0;
my $color = 0;
our $bg = 'e0ffe0';

parseoutline( do { local $/; <DATA> =~ s/\t/  /gr } );

print "<table border=1 cellspacing=0>\n";
for ( @rows )
  {
  my $start = 0;
  print "  <tr>\n";
  for ( @$_ ) # columns
    {
    my ($data, $col, $span, $bg) = @$_;
    print "    <td></td>\n" x ( $col - $start ),
      "    <td colspan=$span align=center bgcolor=#$bg> $data </td>\n"
+;
    $start = $col + $span;
    }
  print "    <td></td>\n" x ( $width - $start ), "  </tr>\n";
  }
print "</table>\n";

sub parseoutline
  {
  ++$row;
  while( $_[0] =~ /^( *)(.*)\n((?:\1 .*\n)*)/gm )
    {
    my ($head, $body, $col) = ($2, $3, $width);
    $row == 1 and local $bg = qw( ffffe0 ffe0e0 )[ $color ^= 1];
    if( length $body ) { parseoutline( $body ) } else { ++$width }
    push @{ $rows[$row] }, [ $head, $col, $width - $col, $bg ];
    }
  --$row;
  }

__DATA__
insects
  large wings
    butterfly
  small or no wings
    very long rear legs
      antenna front
        mosquito
      antenna rear
        grasshopper
    shorter rear legs
      horned head
        rhino beetle
      not horned head
        small eyes
          termite solder
        large eyes
          beetle
[download]

I used the information from the "Insects" drawing.
When the output is run through links -dump filename it outputs:

   +------------------------------------------------------------------
+------+
   |                                insects                           
+      |
   |------------------------------------------------------------------
+------|
   | large wings |                    small or no wings               
+      |
   |-------------+----------------------------------------------------
+------|
   |  butterfly  |   very long rear legs    |       shorter rear legs 
+      |
   |-------------+--------------------------+-------------------------
+------|
   |             |  antenna  | antenna rear | horned  |   not horned h
+ead   |
   |             |   front   |              |  head   |               
+      |
   |-------------+-----------+--------------+---------+---------------
+------|
   |             | mosquito  | grasshopper  |  rhino  |   small   |  l
+arge  |
   |             |           |              | beetle  |   eyes    |  e
+yes   |
   |-------------+-----------+--------------+---------+-----------+---
+------|
   |             |           |              |         |  termite  | be
+etle  |
   |             |           |              |         |  solder   |   
+      |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------
+------+
[download]

Of course, it can also be viewed in a browser.

insects
large wings	small or no wings
butterfly	very long rear legs		shorter rear legs
	antenna front	antenna rear	horned head	not horned head
	mosquito	grasshopper	rhino beetle	small eyes	large eyes
				termite solder	beetle

Wow, that worked :)

UPDATE: fixed typo in comment