In the classic era of word processing, text was born between MS Word, and a printer. Today, it is written and edited on multiple devices and apps, then mailed, printed, copied, pasted, annotated, published, RSSed, shared and re-shared, using all kinds of tools and platforms. Stubborn proprietary file formats fail in this frantic new environment. Plain Text does better, but lacks Rich Text’s formatting. Markdown could be our golden gun. If only it looked a little shinier! So what are the strengths and shortcomings of Rich Text, Plain Text and Markdown1 in this diverse writing landscape? 1. Rich Text Rich te...