Usage
The purpose of using plain text today is primarily independence from programs that require their very 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. Examples include Notepad (Windows), edit (DOS), ed, emacs, vi, vim, Gedit or nano (Unix, Linux), SimpleText (Mac OS), or TextEdit (Mac OS X).
Many other computer programs are also capable of processing or creating plain text, such as countless commands in DOS, Windows, MacOS, and Unix and its kin; as well as web browsers (a few browsers such as Lynx and the Line Mode Browser produce only plain text for display).
Plain text files are almost universal 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 saved settings at the startup of a program, and for much e-mail.
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Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)