Texshop markdown editor
The convention of hexadecimal 0a for newline is not universal, and linebreaks are often a conversion problem when moving text files between computers running different operating systems. Notice that capital letters are distinct from lowercase, and spaces and new lines need their own bytes. (The Wikipedia page on hexadecimal explains how base 16 numbers are written.) In hexadecimal the same numbers are written: I SP a m SP a SP t e s t SP f i l eĤ9 20 61 6d 20 61 20 74 65 73 74 20 66 69 6c 65Ģe 0a 49 20 68 61 76 65 20 32 20 6c 69 6e 65 73 It is more conventional to write numerical representations like this in hexadecimal, which has exactly two digits per byte. Here is ascii.txt (in emp2): I am a test file. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange: Roman letters, numbers, punctuation and control characters correspond to 7-bit numbers (0 to 127) each character fits in a byte (8 bits). (image CC-BY Wendell Oskay) Text encoding ASCII Text images could be bitmaps like this or curves, as in Postscript, PDF, SVG. (Slightly modified from those used during the workshop.) How does a computer represent text? Text encoding H e l l o w o r l d Unzip this and place the resulting emp2 folder some place where you can find it (like your home directory). Komodo Edit is optional any text editor will do, though I'll occasionally refer to details in Komodo (menu items, etc.) that may be slightly different in other editors.
In order to do the workshop on your own, first install Pandoc and LaTeX (links above). The business of plain-text-slinging, a minor craft on its own, nonetheless forms a natural starting point for thinking more deeply about analyzing digitized texts, expressing yourself in "code" of various kinds, and composing in the digital medium. The actual "empowerment" (modest but real) comes in getting a more detailed understanding of the way the systems we already use handle text, and in learning more ways to manipulate that text, beyond the confines of any single program.