BY SHOBHIT JAIN, VIDYASAGAR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, BHOPAL What is Text? Ex !ai" the #$!!$%i"& F$'(at $# Text) a) P!

ai" Text a"* F$'(atte* Text +) RTF ,) HTML Text A"s) - P!ai" Text. - Plain Text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual
material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text and to "binary files" in which some portions must be interpreted as binary objects (encoded integers, real numbers, images etc.). Usa&e. - The purpose of using plain text today is primarily independence from programs that require their ery own special encoding or formatting, and from computer architecture issues such as byte order, etc. Plain text files can be opened, read, and edited with countless generic text editors and utilities. !xamples include "otepad (#indows)$ edit (%&'), !d, emacs, i, im, (edit or nano ()"*+, ,inux), 'impleText (-ac &'), or Text !dit (-ac &' +). -any other computer programs are also capable of processing or creating plain text, such as countless commands in %&', #indows, -ac &', and )"*+ and its .in$ as well as web browsers (a few browsers such as ,ynx and the ,ine -ode /rowser produce only plain text for display). Plain text files are almost uni ersal in programming$ a source code file containing instructions in a programming language is almost always a plain text file. Plain text is also commonly used for configuration files, which are read for sa ed settings at the startup of a program, and for much e0mail. 1ormatted Text2 0 1ormatted text, styled text or rich text, as opposed to plain text, has styling information beyond the minimum of semantic elements2 colors3, styles (boldface, italic), si4es and special features (such as hyperlin.s). Be&i""i"& $# F$'(atte* Text. - 1ormatted text has its genesis in the pre0computer use of underscoring to embolden passages in typewritten manuscripts. *n the first interacti e systems of early computer technology, underscoring was not possible, and users made up for this lac. (and the lac. of formatting in 5'6**) by using certain symbols as substitutes. !mphasis, for example, could be achie ed in 5'6** in a number of ways2 a. 6apitali4ation2 * am "&T ma.ing this up. b. 'urrounding with underscores2 * am not ma.ing this up. c. 'urrounding with asteris.s2 * am 7not7 ma.ing this up. d. 'pacing2 * am n o t ma.ing this up.

'urrounding by underscores was also used for boo. titles2 ,oo. it up in The 6 Programming ,anguage. 1ormatting can be mar.ed by tags distinguished from the body text by special characters, such as angle brac.ets in 8T-,. 1or example, this text2 The dog is classified as 6anis lupus familiars in taxonomy are mar.ed up in 8T-, thus2 9p:the dog is classified as 9i:6anis lupus familiars9;i: in taxonomy. 9;p: The italici4ed text is enclosed by an opening and a closing italics tag. *n ,atex, the text would be mar.ed up li.e this2 The dog is classified as <text it =6anes lupus familiars> in taxonomy. -ar.up languages can be implemented with any text editor, needing no special software. RTF Text. - The ?ich Text 1ormat (often abbre iated ?T1) is a proprietary document file format with published specification de eloped by -icrosoft 6orporation since @ABC for -icrosoft products and for cross0platform document interchange. -ost word processors are able to read and write some ersions of ?T1. There are se eral different re isions of ?T1 specification and portability of files will depend on what ersion of ?T1 is being used. ?T1 specifications are changed and published with major -icrosoft #ord and &ffice ersions. *t should not be confused with enriched text (mime type "text;enriched" of ?16 @BAD) or its predecessor ?ich Text (mime type "text;rich text" of ?16 @EF@ and @GH@)$ nor with */-Is ?1T0 %65 (?e isable 1ormat Text0%ocument 6ontent 5rchitecture) which are completely different specifications. H/(a" 'ea*a+i!it0. - )nli.e most word processing formats, concise ?T1 code can be made human0readable. #hen an ?T1 file is opened in a text editor, without formatting or processing of formatting, the alphanumeric text is legible and the mar.up language (formatting) elements not too distracting or counter0intuiti e. 8owe er, the ?T1 files produced by most programs, such as -icrosoft #ord (-' #ord), will contain such a large number of control codes (for compatibility with older programs) that most files will easily be an order of magnitude larger than the raw text and ery difficult to read. 1ormats such as -' #ordIs only a few scraps of legible text. 8uman0readable +-,0based formats are becoming more common, but during ?T1Is initial release, its le el of readability was rare among document formats. ?T1 is a data format for expressing text documents. *t is not really a mar.up language, as it was ne er meant for intuiti e and easy typing. *f some )nicode characters (e.g. letters with diacritics, or 6JK characters) are used in an ?T1 document, they are difficult to read, as they appear only as escape codes, such as <If@ for L or <uH@GDE for ?T1 also supports -icrosoft &,! embedded objects and -acintosh !dition -anager subscriber objects (since ?T1 @.M) which are not human0readable.
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are, in contrast, binary formats with

F$"ts. - ?T1 supports embedding of fonts used in the document, but this feature is not widely supported in software implementations. ?T1 also supports generic font family names used for font substitution2 roman (serif), 'wiss (sans0 serif), modern (mono space), script, decorati e, technical. This feature is not widely supported for font substitution, e.g. in &pen&ffice.org or 5biword. HTML Text. - 8ypertext -ar.up ,anguage (8T-,) is the main mar.up language for displaying web pages and other information that can be displayed in a web browser. 8T-, is written in the form of 8T-, elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brac.ets (li.e 9html:), within the web page content. 8T-, tags most commonly come in pairs li.e 9h@: and 9;h@:, although some tags, .nown as empty elements, are unpaired, for example 9img:. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing tags). *n between these tags web designers can add text, tags, comments and other types of text0based content. The purpose of a web browser is to read 8T-, documents and compose them into isible or audible web pages. The browser does not display the 8T-, tags, but uses the tags to interpret the content of the page. 8T-, elements form the building bloc.s of all websites. 8T-, allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interacti e forms. *t pro ides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, lin.s, quotes and other items. *t can embed scripts in languages such as Ja a'cript which affect the beha ior of 8T-, web pages. #eb browsers can also refer to 6ascading 'tyle 'heets (6'') to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The #E6, maintainer of both the 8T-, and the 6'' standards, encourages the use of 6'' o er explicit presentational 8T-, mar.up.