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ordinary ASCII text - still the winner
Friday, 28 January 2005 11:55 amDespite many attempts to supersede it, straight ASCII text continues to live on.
All manner of mutually incompatible wordprocessor formats have been developed in attempts to displace it. None has succeeded -- even supremely powerful Microsoft's own Word format, a strange format that is incompatible with everything else including later incarnations of itself, has made only limited inroads against the humble straight text format. PDF has tried very hard to replace simple text, but it remains a doomed, backward-looking format for people who never understood the electronic age and retain an atavistic fetish for paper.
Only one format has succeeded in becoming at least as popular as ordinary text, and that is HTML, thanks to the web. But HTML won't ever supplant text because instead of competing with it, HTML actually uses ordinary text in a cunning technique to display different fonts and styles and to insert images.
In recent years HTML has begun to invade email -- one of simple text's most strongly held territories. But in an odd turn of events HTML's attractive styles and flexibility are proving an impediment, as spammers now use HTML's hidden tags to evade spam filters, and embedded images to identify people who view email. This has caused many people to simply spam-filter all unknown email to the trash if it contains HTML tags. This may be resulting in a slow return to using simple, honest, text emails.
Text has also experienced a popular resurgence lately in the form of SMS messaging. It will probably always be the most economical way to transfer information from keyboard to screen.
In the end, if you want to guarantee that your audience can read your message then simple text is still the only 100% sure bet. After about half a century of computing this is still true, and perhaps will always be.
All manner of mutually incompatible wordprocessor formats have been developed in attempts to displace it. None has succeeded -- even supremely powerful Microsoft's own Word format, a strange format that is incompatible with everything else including later incarnations of itself, has made only limited inroads against the humble straight text format. PDF has tried very hard to replace simple text, but it remains a doomed, backward-looking format for people who never understood the electronic age and retain an atavistic fetish for paper.
Only one format has succeeded in becoming at least as popular as ordinary text, and that is HTML, thanks to the web. But HTML won't ever supplant text because instead of competing with it, HTML actually uses ordinary text in a cunning technique to display different fonts and styles and to insert images.
In recent years HTML has begun to invade email -- one of simple text's most strongly held territories. But in an odd turn of events HTML's attractive styles and flexibility are proving an impediment, as spammers now use HTML's hidden tags to evade spam filters, and embedded images to identify people who view email. This has caused many people to simply spam-filter all unknown email to the trash if it contains HTML tags. This may be resulting in a slow return to using simple, honest, text emails.
Text has also experienced a popular resurgence lately in the form of SMS messaging. It will probably always be the most economical way to transfer information from keyboard to screen.
In the end, if you want to guarantee that your audience can read your message then simple text is still the only 100% sure bet. After about half a century of computing this is still true, and perhaps will always be.