[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I think it would buy you a lot of formatting that you cannot get from a text file. That might not matter to some folks, but certainly will to others, like myself. Many text files are difficult on the eyes. Plus not all eReaders or eReading apps support text files, and even when they do they don't always render very well.

This exactly. Plain text is universal, I see it a lot when I download WordPress plugins as most developers distribute them with quick guides/manuals. I also use it for quick HTML editing when I'm too lazy to open Dreamweaver or have to look at a XML file. It's lightweight compared to a PDF, and better than forcing someone to have to deal with finding the correct version of Word just to open the file.

Otherwise it's pretty useless. You can set up your editor to use the font you want, and what size, but that's just for editing purposes. It's not something most of us would sit there and read for hours. And yeah, most eReaders aren't made to deal with it.

A lot of people here talk about Calibre, which is another reason why I pointed this out. This, along with Markdown (which I'm getting them to add) would be so much easier than having to install another app and learning how to use it.

If you don't know what Markdown is, it's basically an easier way to format a document. It's a lot easier to edit compared to HTML, and still keeps it universal.

i'll give you an example:

This is the beginning of a book...

Here's your chapter title
Your chapter subheading

The date of the entry (so I guess it's a memoir)

Your first paragraph, introduction of the scene, blah.

This is how you format it with the Markdown syntax:

Here's your chapter title
=============
### Your chapter subheading

**The date of the entry (so I guess it's a memoir)**

Your first paragraph, introduction of the scene, blah.

If you just have a line of text with no formatting, it just assumes it's a paragraph.

This is the output after adding the Markdown syntax (an illustration anyway, we don't have heading tags here on the forums):

Here's your chapter title
Your chapter subheading

The date of the entry (so I guess it's a memoir)

Your first paragraph, introduction of the scene, blah.

And you can do that just in Notepad/TextEdit. Some iPad text editors even support Markdown output, so even better. There are some split screen editors on all platforms that will show you a live preview of the output too.

So I'm really hoping they can add the feature to it soon. I think it's already brilliant how easy it is to just open Safari, copy an article, save the text, and convert it, then open it in whatever. But the formatting options are going to be awesome.