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=                               Setext                               =
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                            Introduction
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Setext (Structure Enhanced Text) is a lightweight markup language used
to format plain text documents such as e-newsletters, Usenet postings,
and e-mails.  In contrast to some other markup languages (such as
HTML), the markup is easily readable without any parsing or special
software.

Setext was first introduced in 1992 by Ian Feldman for use in the
'TidBITS' electronic newsletter.


                              Purpose
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Setext allows viewing of marked-up documents without special viewing
software. When appropriate software 'is' used, however, a rich
text-style experience is available to the user.

Smaller documents are trivial to create in any text editor.

To prevent errors, most large 'setext' publications are created using
a markup language such as HTML or SGML and then converted. The
'setext' document can then be distributed without the need for the
recipient to use a HTML email or web viewer.


Multiple ''setext'' documents in the same file
================================================
Multiple 'setext' documents can be stored in the same file, similarly
to how the 'mbox' format can store multiple e-mail messages together.

It was initially announced that multiple documents could be included
in a single stream, separated by a special  tag serving as a document
delimiter. After several months, it was clarified that this tag was
'not' an official part of 'setext', and that multiple documents should
instead be delimited by $$ appearing at the end of a line of text.

Regardless of the number of documents stored in the same file, basic
metadata can be stored about any or all of them by using the
'subject-tt' tag syntax.


                            Setext tags
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The following are the ten most common of the 16 different setext tags.

Example
Setext|setext}} markup tags"    'setext' tag usage and examples Name
setext pattern   Comments
title-tt        Title   =====   This is a long title    ====================    A
distinct title identified by the text, maximum one per setext.  Must
start at the beginning of the line.
subhead-tt      Subhead ------- Subheading One  --------------  A distinct
subheading identified by the text, zero or more per text.       Must start
at beginning of line. See note in title-tt about handling.
indent-tt       66-char lines indented by 2 spaces                First paragraph...
...more of paragraph.   [blank line]      Next paragraph...      Lines undented
and unfolded (longer lines are generally tolerated by most parsers).
This is primary body text, generally plain undented in emails, etc.
currently.
|  One or more **bold** words, generally *word* or **word** in emails
bold-tt **[multi]word**                  | This is **very
important**...
italic-tt       ~word~                   | This is an ~italic~ word.     A
'single', 'italicized' word; multi-word form was not officially
specified due to "visual-clarity reasons"       Multi-word form of
~first~second~third~ supported by 'setext2latex'.
underline-tt    [_multi]word_   [_multi]_word_  This is _underlined text_.
This is _underlined_text_.      |hot link]]s.   One or more underlined words
hot-tt  [multi_]word_   This is a hot_word_.     Used to mark notes and
URLs
include-tt      >[space] [text]              > This is quoted text...     >
...more...
bullet-tt       *[space] [text]          * Item 1 that is...       ...really long        *
Item 2   Displayed in bullet or list format.
href-tt .. _hot_wordURL .. _Wikipedia_home_page https://wikipedia.org
'(Linked in the text with a 'hot-tt' as Wikipedia_home_page_)'  These
'link definitions' are commonly placed at the end of a
paragraph/section, or at the very end of the setext document.


                      Standalone Setext files
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By default all properly setext-ized files will have an ".etx" or
".ETX" suffix. This stands for an "emailable/enhanced text".


                              See also
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Other lightweight markup languages (inspired by Setext):
* Markdown, one of the most used.
* reStructuredText, used to generate Python manuals.
* Textile, designed to generate HTML.
* txt2tags


                           External links
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*
[https://docutils.sourceforge.net/mirror/setext/setext_concepts_Aug92.etx.txt
Setext format]
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20010424104701/http://www.bsdi.com/setext/
Setext historical documents] at Archive.org
* [http://tidbits.com/article/3282 TidBITS introduction of setext]
* [https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-test/setext/ setext+sgml at W3.org],
including the same document in both
[https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-test/setext/setext+sgml_01.etx
'setext'-like plain text] and
[https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-test/setext/setext+sgml_01.html
'html'] formats to allow a side-by-side comparison.


Implementations
=================
* [http://www.valdemar.net/~erik/setext/setext2html.txt
setext2html.pl] -- A Perl setext -> HTML converter
* [http://setextbrowser.zomdir.com/ setextbrowser.zomdir.com] '()' - A
web application which let you browse the internet in a semi-setext
format


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=========
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