On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:34:52 -0500, Joshua Hutchinson <joshua@hutchinson.net> wrote:

Jim Tinsley wrote:

...

Where bold does need to be rendered in plain text, the current most common usage (from DP) is *bold text*. There are times when it is appropriate to signify bold, but I have seen some texts coming from DP where it has been used unnecessarily -- mostly to indicate a sub-heading or chapter title in the book. In such a case, where a chapter title is clearly a chapter title and on a line by itself, there really is no need to mark it in the plain text version as having been bold face in the original. I think this practice comes from people pre-marking the text for later conversion to HTML, rather than any intent to clutter the plain text.

Actually, it is probably there from the OCR pre-processing and was never removed through all the rounds of proofing and post-processing... why I feel this is important enough of a distinction that I needed to make a post about ... I have no idea.

Well, at least you cleared up a mystery for me! Thanks! And since I have now been asked twice within the last couple of weeks about bold, I guess that's Frequently enough to go into the FAQ. It's now on the list for the next update. jim