Understanding Plain Text vs Rich Text Editors.wmv

This video provides a basic summary of the differences between plain text editors like Notepad and rich text editors like Dreamweaver and Word.

[sbicknel]

Word processing files are a way of representing pieces of paper digitally. They just happen to be populated largely by text. Once the text is contained by such digital paper, it becomes very inflexible, indeed. Copy and paste operations from word processors to other programs take not only the text, but the formatting, which is something not usually desired. However, copying and pasting plain text into any program is simple and works exactly as one would expect.

[sbicknel]

They can be searched, sorted, and transformed easily by many programs. No special software is required to work with them. They cannot be locked up the way word processor vendors do to ensure that only their software will read their word processing file formats.

Working with text files takes little more time or effort than working directly in a word processor. Text editors (except Notepad) offer editing features that meet or beat text editing features of word processors.

[sbicknel]

This video seems to be part of a college CIS course. Nevertheless, it is presented on YouTube without context and deserves some comment.

Terms such as “rich text” as applied to word processing formatting and “inflexible” as applied to plain text connote certain attitudes that demand closer inspection.

The opposite of rich text is not really plain text, but poor text. This is implied by the term rich text. And who wants to use something that is poor?

[sbicknel]

And a PDF is as easy to create from a formatted document in a word processor as it is to import plain text. The text, images, formatted PDF output, and word processor internal working format can be saved together as a zip file for archiving.

Only time will reveal whether the OpenDocument standard for office documents will allow word processing files to survive long-term archiving.

[sbicknel]

Ask several casual computer users which they prefer: plain text or rich text, and you will likely be told that rich text is preferred. “Plain text” implies boring, and no one likes boring, let alone poor. If plain text is inflexible, this implies that rich text is flexible by contrast. But, is it, really?

[sbicknel]

It is a simple matter to apply formatting to already edited text; but applying formatting while editing is still underway often results in broken formatting, which takes more time to fix.

In recent years, the PDF display formats have been formally standardized, making them easily accessible by various programs on all operating systems now in use. Just as plain text preserves the content, PDF preserves the intended appearance of documents.

[caboumcommeunier]

<p>
<span style="font-family:Castellar, serif">A e s t h e t i
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</p>

[sbicknel]

However, copying and pasting plain text into any program is simple and works exactly as one would expect. Plain text, it turns out, is far more flexible than so-called rich text.

But boring old plain text offers several advantages over any word processing file format. Plain text files last a long time. There are text files from the 70s and 80s that are as readable today as the day they were typed into a text editor. A website devoted to text files offers several thousand examples.

[sbicknel]

Composition and editing in a text editor is just as easy. Importing to a word processor is as easy as selecting the Insert/File… or Insert/Object/Text from file… options in the most-used word processors. The real advantage to working on the text outside of a word processor appears when formatting the document.

[sbicknel]

Perhaps in twenty or thirty years display devices will encourage far more interesting formatting of text than is possible today and will make those word processing files little more than antiquated relics. But those much maligned plain old boring text files will still be there ready to perform the service of keeping our data future-proof and flexible for use in any context.

[sbicknel]

The website referred to in my comments has a url that starts with three ws, has textfiiles and ends in com is the one I am talking about.

[sbicknel]

Try loading nearly any word processing file from the same era and the attempt will fail.

Plain text can be imported into any environment: various operating systems, text processing software, various display systems. It doesn’t matter. The web, SMS text, email, word processors, wikis… they all accept plain text.

Text files are small, much smaller than equivalent word processing files. Their smallness translates to cheaper storage and less congestion when transmitted across a network.

[quabledistocficklepo]

Why does plain exist? Wasn't it just used before Rich text was created? In other words, is it wrong to say that Rich text is the natural development of a more primitive system?

[sbicknel]

But if the text, images, and display formatting are still accessible years down the line, future word processors that cannot read today’s formats can still be used to reproduce the look of today’s documents, if that is even desirable. After all, who in 1985 could have anticipated the world wide web or e-book readers commonly in use today.

[batdogduke]

oh my god, you didn't even explain how to put words into plain text |:(