RFC 1523 (rfc1523) - Page 1 of 15
The text/enriched MIME Content-type
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group N. Borenstein
Request for Comments: 1523 Bellcore
Category: Informational September 1993
The text/enriched MIME Content-type
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Abstract
MIME [RFC-1341, RFC-1521] defines a format and general framework for
the representation of a wide variety of data types in Internet mail.
This document defines one particular type of MIME data, the
text/enriched type, a refinement of the "text/richtext" type defined
in RFC 1341. The text/enriched MIME type is intended to facilitate
the wider interoperation of simple enriched text across a wide
variety of hardware and software platforms.
The Text/enriched MIME type
In order to promote the wider interoperability of simple formatted
text, this document defines an extremely simple subtype of the MIME
content-type "text", the "text/enriched" subtype. This subtype was
designed to meet the following criteria:
1. The syntax must be extremely simple to parse, so that even
teletype-oriented mail systems can easily strip away the
formatting information and leave only the readable text.
2. The syntax must be extensible to allow for new formatting
commands that are deemed essential for some application.
3. If the character set in use is ASCII or an 8- bit ASCII
superset, then the raw form of the data must be readable enough
to be largely unobjectionable in the event that it is displayed
on the screen of the user of a non-MIME-conformant mail reader.
4. The capabilities must be extremely limited, to ensure that
it can represent no more than is likely to be representable by
the user's primary word processor. While this limits what can
be sent, it increases the likelihood that what is sent can be
properly displayed.
Borenstein
