Re: Good beginner doc-hacking task: clear-text vs. cleartext vs. clear text vs. plaintext etc..

On Nov 6, 2026, at 09:44, Karen Jex <karenjex(at)hotmail(dot)com> wrote:

> I would love to take this on - thank you for flagging it as a potential first doc-hacking task.

Yay!

> Just to confirm my understanding:
> 1. We should use "cleartext" and "plaintext" throughout, not "clear-text", "clear text", "plain text" or "plain-text".
> 2. There is at least one case where "plaintext" is used incorrectly in place of "cleartext”.

I thought these were synonyms, in contrast to “ciphertext”. Should we not pick one to replace all of the others? Searching around a bit, it seems like “ciphertext” and “plaintext” are most often contrasting terms, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciphertext.

Best,

David