itxt

1.0 Limited ITXT                                                         line 35
2.0 itxt2html                                                            line 43
3.0 itxt2groff                                                           line 51
4.0 itxt2txt                                                             line 59
5.0 txt2litxt                                                            line 70
6.0 litxt2html                                                           line 76
7.0 Licence                                                              line 82

Minimalist plain text formatter, supporting HTML and groff

ITXT is intended for long term storage of notes where plain text is the master
format, but it should be easy to produce something “nicer looking” for easy
information sharing. There are no dependencies to the implementation to make
long term maintenance less cumbersome. For the same reason, the feature set is
very minimal: Re-flow of text within an indented paragraph, forced line breaks,
and switching to a pre-formatted (non-proportional font, no squashing of space
characters) environment.

Indent is by default a multiple of four spaces, tabs are not allowed.

Line break is forced by ending a line with “_|”.

Switching to and from monospace font is done by a single line containing only 80
consecutive “-” characters.

reStructuredText is a superior, but for good and bad, also a richer format. RST
is designed for making a good looking end product, this is more or less
impossible with ITXT. ITXT is strictly minimalist and aims for the writer not
spending any time on the feature set, or details of a host system being exposed
during conversion to any of the output format.


    1.0 Limited ITXT

Some of the tools operate on a limited subset of ITXT syntax. This subset does
not support indents outside blocks using a monospace font and forced linebreaks.
In other words, it only switches between unindented paragraphs and preformatted
blocks using a monospace font.


    2.0 itxt2html

Converts ITXT data from stdin to HTML on stdout. Run with “-h” for a synopsis.

This is the oldest of the, at the time of writing, three converters, and the
rest are pretty much based on this.


    3.0 itxt2groff

Converts ITXT data from stdin to groff on stdout. Run with “-h” for a synopsis.

Only tested with groff, neither nroff nor troff. The generator might be
interesting for somebody who wants to write a groff pre-processor.


    4.0 itxt2txt

Converts ITXT data from stdin to plain text on stdout. Run with “-h” for a
synopsis.

It might seem strange to convert a plain text format to a plain text format, but
this utility reflows the paragraphs in the input file and removes dangling line
break markers (“_|”) while honoring them. Intended for reading a file on very
narrow terminals or windows.


    5.0 txt2litxt

Heuristically attempts to convert plain text from stdin to limited ITXT on
stdout. Run with “-h” for a synopsis.


    6.0 litxt2html

Use only a subset of ITXT to generate very simple HTML. Only unindented
paragraphs and monospace blocks are supporte. Run with “-h” for a synopsis.


    7.0 Licence

Copyright 2019-2022 Steinar Knutsen

Licensed under the EUPL, Version 1.2 or – as soon they will be approved by the
European Commission – subsequent versions of the EUPL (the “Licence”); You may
not use this work except in compliance with the Licence. You may obtain a copy
of the Licence at:

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed
under the Licence is distributed on an “AS IS” basis, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR
CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the Licence for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations under the Licence.