About

Text formats suitable for storage and transfer of structured data

  • csv

  • yaml

  • toml

  • xml

  • json

  • xls

Markup formats

  • html

  • markdown

  • asciidoc

  • rst

  • tex

File Encoding

BOM

The byte order mark (BOM) is a particular usage of the special Unicode character, U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK
— en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark
UTF-8 BOM
0xEF,0xBB,0xBF
UTF-16 BOM
U+FEFF

Conversion Between Formats

Good format specification allows to convert the document from one format to another. It can be done automatically using a conversion tool. When the target format has equal or greater expression power the conversion is lossless.

Pandoc

A universal document converter.

How to Organize Data

Tree

Overview of directories, high level overview.

Directory/Folder

Container for related files and subdirectories.

Index

File describing the directory.

Labels/Tags/Keywords

Metadata attached to files or directories, useful for cross directory orientation.

Contents/Table of Contents

Overview of document sections, also useful for orientation and quick summary.

Links/References

Useful for cross document orientation.

Composition/Includes

Useful for full body search, big overview and export purposes.

Tool Automations

  • Tree generated based on the structure of the directories.

  • Index generated based on the files in the directory.

  • Contents generated based on the document headers.

  • Label search for files and directories.

  • Composition of multiple documents.

  • Document export into different formats.