Plain Text Files Preferred

[rthorm@cornellbox.com]

I have been a longtime advocate for having files and information that is
accessible to as many people as possible.  I have run the DQ Newsletter in
text-only format, so that nearly anyone should be able to access the material. 
Plain text may not be nicely formatted or have some of the other readability
features that other file types offer, but the basic information can be
accessed.
 
Use of Wintel PCs is widespread, but not unanimous.  There are lots of Mac users
and others who would not be able to use the files if we used MS Word. 
Proprietary formats also change over time.  I had to convert my original "Poor
Brendan's Almanac" files when I decided to update it and publish it on the Web.
 I had originally composed it on a Macintosh, and had since moved over to a PC
platform.  But plain text files will not be obsoleted by changes in the file
format.  And plain text can easily be imported into anyone's favorite program
and enhanced as desired.

I also think that good layout and readability are important factors to consider,
so plain text files by themselves are not going to be the only format we will
want to support.  I am also a fan of Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format because it is
widely available (though I understand that it is not available for OS/2
systems) and it allows complete formatting and layout control.

I recently found out that PHP scripts can be set up that will automatically
generate PDF files.  I suppose that my ideal would be to set this up on a site
that would allow the automatic generation of a PDF copy of the rules, allow the
selection of which optional rules to include, etc.

But I strongly feel that the base text must be simple plain text.  I don't have
a problem with anyone using MS Word, if that is their preferred word processor.
 I use Word at work, but I also use Open Office and Edit Pad, and prefer those
programs.  Any word processor will output a plain text file.  If nothing else,
you can always copy and paste text into an email program.

And lastly, plain text files are smaller than anything with built in formatting,
so that also helps make it easier to archive and share them.

  --Rodger


Quoting artgrtr8u <artgrtr8u@yahoo.com>:

> Have you given any thought to what format the rules will be
> written/published in?  Will we use MSWord for editing and maybe
> publish to pdf and/or html?  Or will we edit in plain text?
> 
> Microsoft Word has some built in tools for indexing which still
> require some manual work but do make it easier to generate the index
> initially.  This system uses page numbers instead of section/rule
> numbers and ultimately an index based on rule numbers would be much
> more useful, and consistent across all formats (page numbers would
> change as rules were updated and formats were changed).
> 
> There is also the potential that we could find or write a PERL script
> that would do some automated indexing for us.
> 
> I think it might be worthwhile to determine this up front so that as
> we go forward and add rules people can do what they need to make sure
> the index will be generated and kept up to date correctly.
> 
> -Stephen Johnson (the other one)

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