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Text On The Internet

Current W 3 browsers handle either plain text or simple hypertext, and in fact the great majority of information currently available in the world is representable in this way, as is evidenced by the growth of the web during the last year.

- World-Wide Web: An Information Infrastructure for HighEnergy Physics (select www-for-hep-ps); Tim Berners-Lee, et al.; January 1992.

Most Internet communication is based on text, a medium with tremendous strengths, but needs help to communicate the richness possible with other mediums such as the pen, voice, and body language. The following sections describe various clever ways that have been developed to extend human ability to communicate on the Internet with text:

Adding Emphasis To Text

Emoticons & Smileys

Text Abbreviations

Text Actions

ASCII Art.

Other resources. Sometimes the formatting of text can get messed up by email programs and mailing lists. You can format text for maximum readability on the Internet by writing it in Text Standard Format.