Documenttxt

DocumentTXT is a simple, open plain-text document format designed to balance human readability with machine parseability. It aims for portability across operating systems and applications, with a focus on long-term readability and minimal tooling requirements.

Structure: A DocumentTXT file begins with a metadata header consisting of lines of the form key: value. The header is terminated by a blank line. The body contains ordinary text and optional sections. Headings are created by a heading line starting with one hash character, followed by the heading text; subsequent levels use two or more hash characters. Paragraphs are free-form text; lists may be denoted by hyphens at the start of a line.

Common metadata fields include Title, Author, Date, Version, and Tags. This metadata is intended to aid indexing, search, and provenance tracking, and is human-readable while being easy to parse by software.

Usage and tooling: DocumentTXT is supported by lightweight parsers in several languages and can be converted to other formats through renderers. It serves as a minimal alternative to more feature-rich markup languages when readability and archival stability are priorities.

Relationship to other formats: While it shares some ideas with front matter and lightweight markups, DocumentTXT remains distinct in its strict header-first design and plain-text-only body.

The lowercase form documenttxt is sometimes used informally to refer to the format.