The Textsmith Primer is now Available
Ishe Chinyoka
- 2 minutes readTable of Contents
When I started The Textsmith, I had a simple goal: to explore the enduring value of plain text in a world increasingly shaped by complex software and rapidly changing technology.
Over the past several weeks, many of the ideas discussed on this blog—Markdown, configuration files, dotfiles, Git, text processing, publishing, and the philosophy of digital craftsmanship—have grown into something much larger.
I’m pleased to announce that The Textsmith Primer: A Philosophy of Digital Writing is now available.
The primer is a practical and philosophical introduction to working with plain text. Rather than focusing on one editor or one operating system, it explores the ideas that unite the entire plain-text ecosystem.
Inside, you’ll find five parts covering:
- The foundations of plain text and why it continues to endure.
- Markup languages, from HTML and XML to Markdown, Typst, and beyond.
- Text processing with classic Unix tools such as
grep,sed,awk, regular expressions, and the shell. - Modern publishing with Pandoc, Quarto, websites, books, presentations, and technical documentation.
- The Textsmith’s Workshop, exploring version control, note-taking, automation, artificial intelligence, ethics, teaching, and the habits that shape thoughtful digital craftsmanship.
The book also includes a glossary, practical appendices, a parallel document presented in multiple markup languages, a brief history of markup languages, and a curated list of further reading for those who wish to continue exploring the craft.
This primer was written with a simple conviction:
Plain text is more than a file format.
It is a way of thinking.
Whether you’re a student, developer, writer, researcher, system administrator, educator, or simply someone curious about digital writing, I hope you’ll find something useful within its pages.
You can begin reading The Primer here.
Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog from its first posts. I hope this primer serves not only as a reference, but as an invitation into the tradition of textsmithing.
The workshop is open.
Welcome, fellow textsmith.