All Gopher Clients can read TEXT files.  As this is the standard method 
of relaying information with Gopher, and as TEXT files lack formatting 
indicators such as BOLD and ITALIC (you are limited to ASCII characters 
only), a standardized method of indicating formatted information using 
just ASCII characters becomes important.  Below are listed some of the
formatting indicators in common usage:



TITLE = Deeply indent, then precede and end phrase with arrows:
				---> Titile <---


HEADING = Left align, then box above and below with equal-signs:
		=======
		Heading
		=======

BULLET = Indent, then precede with a dash and a space:
		     - bullet


SUB-BULLET = Heavily indent, then precede with a tilde and a space:
		        ~ sub-bullet


BOLD = Type phrase using all capitals:
		BOLD


ITALIC = Precede and end phrase with a dash:
		-italic-


BOLD/ITALIC = Combine the bold and italic indicators:
		-BOLD/ITALIC-


UNDERLINE = Precede and end phrase with a double-quote:
		"underline"


HIGHLIGHT = Precede and end phrase with a single-quote:
		'highlight' 




Please note that the number of characters per line is also an issue.
Typesetters consider 65 characters the optimal line length (easiest to read).


CGA video displays are limited to a maximum of 40 characters before wrapping.
DOS programs can only display a maximum of 80 characters before wrapping.  
WebTV (MSNTV) will display between 41 (all letter "A") and 90 (all letter "I") 
characters per line before wrapping, as it uses a variable-width font.

The Bucktooth Gopher server will wrap menus over 65 characters in length.
The UMN GopherD server will truncate any menu over 67 characters in length!


Gopher servers provide no help in character rendering.  If you choose to use,
for example, ISO-8859 characters, keep in mind that it is responsability of 
the Clinet to render the characters correctly.  Note that most Gopher Clients 
are written on the expectaction of encountering a standard ASCII character set.  


CAUTION:
Some Web-based archiving software will improperly assume that a word with 
both a leading and following dash (i.e., -foo-) is a "strikeout", and will 
draw a line through the word (i.e., insert the html element "<strike>").