karl said:
Sure, these ASCII files are also useful for special purposes, but telling us again and again that's the best solution for all books and all times, is highly arguable.
to my mind, the only problem with the ascii files is the absence of book typography -- bold headings, justified lines, bottom-balanced pages, pagination!, properly rendered footnotes, all the looks-nice stuff, leading to a display that is so boring it becomes tedium. fortunately, i've found with my z.m.l. that an intelligent viewer-program can figure out all of that stuff itself, given a reasonable amount of easily-done "hinting", and apply it, which removes this "only problem" and makes the ascii files "the best solution" for most books, most of the time. -bowerbird