loading . . . Questionnaire – Plain Text Aleem Shaun has recently posted his answers to Ellane’s Eight Questions about Plain Text, and they’re a good quick read, as are Ellane’s. I’ve written about plain text before, and even made a zine about it, so I decided to throw my answers in to the mix as well. This may re-tread some of the same ground I’ve gone over in the past, but I feel you might still get something useful out of it, especially if you haven’t read my other plain text stuff before.
## When did you start using plain text?
I’ve kind of always used plain text since I was using computers. Some of my first web sites were made using Notepad.exe, and I’ve always used plain text scratch notes. I have a lot of memories from my typing class back in school (when we actually had those), and sometimes they’d throw us a small creative writing assignment at the end, for fun. These were always done in plain text, and it always got my juices flowing, the same way looking at a blank canvas starts making me think of things to draw.
## Why did you start using plain text?
I had no money! Also, I remember the transition from Word ’97 to 2000 being kind of painful. It wasn’t even that bad by modern standards, because I didn’t even lose my old files completely–just some of the formatting in them. But we did get endless nag screens about it, and it soured me on proprietary formats and the idea that they could be changed on a whim.
## What do you use plain text for?
Scratch notes, documentation, brainstorming, zines, and all sorts of other stuff. I’ve been using Obsidian for work life stuff lately, and it’s basically plain text (markdown, a small step up), so professional stuff too. Occasionally I like drawing little ASCII diagrams and artwork in it too.
## What keeps you using plain text?
I work on a lot of different systems on a consistent basis, and locking myself into one of them was never going to work for me. At home, I’m using Linux Mint for desktop stuff, and Ubuntu server for home lab hosting. I have an Android phone that’s already aging, so it’s not going to be using the latest and greatest, and it needs to not only be talking to my other devices, but doing so without slowing down. For work, we’re a Windows office, and that’s not going to change any time soon, whether I like it or not, though we do occasionally use MacOS as well.
All that to say, open formats make things SO MUCH EASIER for me. I’m always jotting down ideas, notes, and reminders, and I want to be able to access them wherever and whenever. Plain text is the easiest thing to send across and read, and I rest easy knowing that’s not going to change any time soon. There are, of course, syncing services that will centralize notes and send them around for you, but I do not like being locked into certain ecosystems, and I also do not like paying for things I can do myself. Plain text hasn’t let me down yet.
## Do you use any markup or formatting languages? If so, which ones and why?
As mentioned above, I do use markdown format when I need something extra. Mostly it’s for lists, because I am a list-heavy note taker. I also use MediaWiki format, because I have a personal wiki that I use as a “second brain,” and MediaWiki is the engine it runs on. I wish MW would just use markdown, but nobody asked me, so I make it work.
## What are your favourite plain text tools or applications?
I’ve hyped up Markor on Android before, and it continues to be my favorite tool for writing and exchanging notes on my phone. It’s simple and open, and does everything I need it to. I lost notes once before when switching phones because I went from one manufacturer to another, but will never suffer again now.
Sublime Text is what I prefer to use on desktop, though I sometimes use Notepad++ as well. Both are great programs, though Sublime is probably my favorite. They’re both meant for programming, so they’re probably not what you’d think of when talking about plain text tools, but since I usually have them open for web stuff anyway, they handle plain text just fine, and the search tools are great.
## Is there one tool you can’t do without?
Probably Markor, as mentioned above, but even then, if something happened to this app, I’d probably be able to find another one that does something similar. The beauty of working with plain text files is that I _don’t_ really need to be dependent on one tool. There are ones I like, of course, and I have preferences just as with anything else, but in a pinch I’ve used other things and they worked just fine.
## Is there anything you can’t do with plain text?
I think of myself as primarily a visual artist, so there is plenty I can’t do with plain text that involves art. As far as text stuff though? I’m not sure, maybe tabular data and database work? But even then there’s CSV for a lot of stuff. I guess the main thing I utilize with notes that doesn’t come built in is linking to other data that I’ve written up and included. I’m not really sure how you’d implement that, to be honest, so for now I just fill that gap with markdown. https://www.thefrugalgamer.net/blog/2026/01/22/questionnaire-plain-text/
