From WYSIWYG to MD
But, what the cabbage, are these abstruse acronyms, will they be of any use? A title with an impactful statement that is aimed at Word Processing users. We say it all, I was inspired by some daily speeches on computer topics in which I secretly have a good big fat neapolitan laugh.
You are using the wrong document format!
A bit of history
If someone of advanced age (like the writer) remembers AmiPro was part of the package sold together with the legendary Lotus 123 I do not forget the legendary WordPerfect Office by Corel and the very popular Office by Microsoft. I won’t go into detail, if you want to delve deeper into the history of Office Automation program suites click here .
I don’t even want to get into the discussion of free programs that can very well replace commercial programs which, in the meantime, have further refined themselves into a perverse pleasure of the cloud: I’ll take care of it, you think about paying an annual fee so your data is in my hands safe! Another big and fat neapolitan laugh.
A little analysis
I write a document in Microsoft docx format, I wrote 36 characters “I write something in this document.” I open the text with any notepad and we see what it contains.
You are wrong the document format - doc content
Number 11,542 characters on 118 lines of proprietary digital crap to contain only 36 characters of my document. All this to say that there are proprietary formats which are read by most commonly used programs but, it is not said that they will not be in the future. The possible scenery is that you have a copy of your thesis on an (obsolete) floppy disk written with a program that is not compatible with current software.
Document format
The WYSIWYG document, What You See Is What You Get, shows in the blank digital sheet that it will then be printed or published. Over time, various programs have adopted digital functions for to represent information with proprietary solutions, precisely because there was no recognized standardized format. Thanks to the Open Document Format for Office Application (ODF), an attempt has been made to overcome this problem.
For example, NATO defines the interoperability standards adopted to be consistent and not undergo obsolescence, if you want to know more the document is from August 2023 click here .
It is not said that a nation or company has its own internal proprietary standard that is incompatible with the most widespread ones or that it only partially adopted as widespread standard.
I report some reflections:
- The documents containing my sensitive data were generated with standard or proprietary programs.
- Will the data always be accessible or will everything be reset due to obsolescence?
- Are the dxf plans of the land registry an open format that is guaranteed not to be obsolete?
- What are the standards and how are sensitive data managed in the cloud?
- What are the collaborative policies on the documents where my sensitive data reside?
Markdown
Now that you have breathed a sigh of relief considering standard format documents you necessarily need to take a further step forward.
- Write once and generate all the types of formats you want. Therefore you can create pdf, websites, books, epub, degree theses, notes, presentations, e-mails, technical documents.
- Change color style or change the theme but your data is always the same, only the way of representing them changes.
- The Markdown document is read on any application and on any operating system. You can use many existing and future programs, it will always be read. The format is not proprietary.
- Paradox, if suddenly all the Markdown programs stopped working due to a pandemic electronic plague, the document is always readable with any notepad and the formatting does not affect a good and correct reading of the document.
- Markdown works on any device and operating system.
- Markdown is valid for documents that must be preserved and for which they must be read in the future without problems and obsolescence, such as books for example.
- BalziBox articles are written in Markdown.
There are many Open Source programs for any operating system but, before installing I recommend you try online DILLINGER .