Linforme

Linforme is a term used in information science to describe a lightweight, line-oriented information report format implemented as plain text. The name blends line and informe, with the latter meaning report in several Romance languages; in practice, linforme refers to a family of similar, loosely standardized document styles rather than a single specification. It emerged in open-data and journalism communities as a pragmatic alternative to heavier structured formats when human readability and easy scripting were priorities.

A typical linforme document begins with a metadata header composed of short key-value lines, such as Title, Author, Date, and Version. After a blank line, the body is organized into sections indicated by a keyword followed by a colon, for example Summary:, Data:, Methods:, Results:, and References:. Each section contains concise lines or paragraphs, with optional simple inline markers for emphasis. The format emphasizes readability in plain text while remaining amenable to lightweight parsers and version control.

Uses and adoption vary, but linforme has been discussed as a practical choice for collaborative reporting, data journalism, policy memos, and research notes where a human-friendly structure must coexist with machine parsability. Because there is no universally binding standard, implementations differ, and practitioners often document their own conventions within a project. See also plain text data formats and line-oriented markup.