What is Plain Text?
Plain text is a plain and simple concept, but actually it is quite tricky to explain, because its definition is nuanced and not fully univocal.
Literally, it means text that is not formatted, hence text that does not contain anything except what is the content itself.
Nevertheless, I argue that a Markdown file is a plain text file, even though it contains formatting. I can still open and read it with a text editor. The same goes for JSON, SVG, or CSS, even though they are much more complex in terms of structure.
What I believe to be the determining factor in defining plain text is what can be opened by a plain text editor, and manipulated directly.
I love Plain Text
Because of its straightforward and trivial essence, I love plain text. You can literally do anything with it. Programs nowadays are so complex and full of bells and whistles. Plain text unmasks everything by showing how huge superstructures are good to make everything big and cool, but the added value is minimal.
Dealing with plain text can take away most of the pain of not knowing how to deal with specific software and structures for everything.
What I found to be the best solution of all is to base the most I can on plain text, but then to use super awesome software that reads and arranges it making it graphically and conceptually more structured. The best example of this is Obsidian, particularly if coupled with its extraordinary plugins.
I prefer plain text emails. Of course HTML formatting looks better and provides more features, but it is not worth the trade-off in terms of simplicity and deliverability.
Most information about why and how to prefer and write plain text emails is collected on the very insightful useplaintext.email:
[…] HTML emails are a security nightmare, are mostly used for advertising to you and tracking you, are less accessible for many users, and don’t offer anything especially great for it.
It would be great if there existed a client that could send and receive emails in plain text, but with Markdown syntax. By doing so, Markdown could be rendered by the client, even though the original email is in pure plain text. here is my proposition
Limits
As great as plain text can be, I believe it is counterproductive to claim, to hope, and to believe it can take over the world. I deem its true power in the personal adoption and cultivation.
Indeed, the most fundamental problem of plain text is that often it is not directly interoperable. One example worth all: up to a while ago, I was logging the books I owned, read, and wanted to read on a simple, beautiful, essential CSV file. It was great. I had to manually type in the details, but I was fine with that: it was worth the effort. Later on, I realized that I developed a very personal way of sharing such list: I created a custom Liquid template showing all those books in a page. But what about other people’s comments, interactions, notes? Plain text is too limited for that purpose. For the sake of convenience and interoperability, I started using Bookwyrm instead.
Note: I am still maintaining library.csv, because Bookwyrm is not fully mature enough. It is just a matter of time, though.
Giving up on plain text
It is ok to give up plain text when it becomes a burden to maintain and to use efficiently during daily life. We do not live in a perfect world, and there exist already too many computer issues I cannot do much about. Why stressing even more on a self-imposed limit?
Let’s use plain text as much as possible, but only when it is beautiful and convenient. Let’s keep plain text fun and lovely as it should.
Resources
- ASCII Art: a collection of art creations made with ASCII characters.
Odes by others
- I <3 plain text files by @killercup
- Plain Text Reigns Supreme by Andre Bogus
- Write plain text files, by Derek Sivers