I do understand that unicode is the next generation of ascii, which as bowerbird pointed out includes the standard ascii characters and is enhanced from there. While we could make XML the standard, why shouldn't we just include it alongside the plaintext human readable revision without markup tags. If the work is so easy it would be negligble to keep both revisions around from initial editing. I remember years ago when PG first started (I was just an outside reader completely then) that they chose plain ascii text to not get mired in any particular format that may be lost. Hence the stone tablets of the computer world. To one of the people that commented on my email - yes I want everyone to eat rocks. I beleive in PG as an archival society. The reason the format is so successful, even in this day and age is that it ubiquitous. It is this commonality that makes it flexible. do I really care if there is a seperate XML revision from the plaintext? No I do not. I don't care if we make adobe pagemaker versions. I just don't want to lose the plaintext. PG hasn't been futurists in the sense of betting what is going to be common in the coming decades. In any discussion that we could consider replacnig the the plaintext revisions with XML it needs to be asked if PG is a futurist or archival society. If I ever manage ot get my hands on the first edition of Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo like I want, I am not going to complain that it is in French, and I can not read french. In that sense it is no usable to me (it wouldn't mater in book form or any other) since I don't read french. But for some reason the desire to pretty up the archives with a replacement format is just that. I would have a book that as survived 150 years (give or take a decade or 2) that is still able to be translated and worked from easyily. Unicode wiull last at least that. I guarantee whichever XML revision is chosen it will be replaced in 150 years and be made obsolete. Unicode on the other hand will still be around because it is the workhorse of a computer society. Finally let's leave this will a bit of my own dealing with XML. I work for a company that produced a major aplication we moved from standard plaintext config files and plaintext logfiles to XML based. This in turn made tweaking and troubleshooting much more difficult than it was worth. THere is also other problems that arose with that. The cumbersome activities of our dewvelopment staff turned alot of people away, and gained alot of new customers at great cost (I don't want to go into too much detail about my company or product). The main difference though is my compnay is supposed ot be forward thinking and is trying to keep up with the jones's. PG has no jones's to compete with it is a single entity above that petty bickering. It is a beautifl idea of preserving civilization for the future to generations. To survive copyright laws and make the works available. I also believe though that new books should be edited now by PG and locked in a storage vault for release a a later date, so the books themselves survive even if the print copies don't. I add that in to show I don't follow a straight PG line, but i'm all about keeping the existence of this information alive for future generations. I'm about the information and the access and survival for it You can beautify it all you want but I strongly feel the essence and soul should be maintained as it is now before we lose what makes us special.