
Ask HN: How should one format plain-text documents? - rafael859
I would like to store short plain-text documents that are readable as text (without being converted to anything else).<p>I am familiar with LaTeX and Markdown, but I consider the former to be too unreadable for my purposes (since I don&#x27;t plan to convert the document to any other format), and the latter to be fairly good, but not quite there. I have heard about org-mode, but I would like a format that works as a stand-alone file, regardless of the editor used.<p>I am looking at the way that RFC documents are formatted, and I have to say that they are fairly readable, though I couldn&#x27;t find a specification on their format.<p>My current solution is something that resembles Markdown, without header markings (because even though they make sense in plain-text, they don&#x27;t really give a sense of hierarchy structurally), with single blank lines under paragraph headers and double blank lines after the end of a paragraph. Text in a paragraph is limited to 80 characters, and words are not broken.<p>What are some good ways to denote header hierarchy? Should I indent paragraphs? Should I indent lower levels under a header, so that it&#x27;s clear when a section ends?<p>I understand that I have mentioned several subjective preferences, so feel free to add your own subjective opinions.
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Tomte
Asciidoc looks „natural“

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cimmanom
I'm a fan of ReStructuredText. It's not unlike Markdown, but among other
things its heading markup is better at conveying hierarchy.

