[texhax] Message to all that responded to my call for help.

[Philip TAYLOR]

Frog wrote:

> David,
> You probably remember me from my past problems...the old man learning
> the computer world as he goes. Now for my learning question this time
> around--Is the signature that I developed (developed following the steps
> I gave in my earlier message)plain text? Is there a security problem
> with the signature I developed? It seems to me that is is simply plain
> text as the rest of my message--just in bold letters, a larger font
> size, and in a different font. Am I correct in this thinking?
> Thanks again for helping me get my knowledge base in line.
> Frog

Perhaps I can help here, M. le frog ...

> It seems to me that is is simply plain
>> text as the rest of my message--just in bold letters, a larger font
>> size, and in a different font. Am I correct in this thinking?

No.  As soon as you start speaking about bold, font, size,
etc., you have moved way beyond plain text and into the
realms of structured text, formatted text, rich text,
whatever.  Plain text contains letters, numbers, symbols,
punctuation, end-of-line-markers, and blank lines.  Nothing
else : no fonts, no variation in size, no variation in weight,
or colour, or shape, or anything.  Just text, line breaks
and white space.

Philip Taylor