Chapter 13: Text Editors

Overview

Text editors are programs that enable the creation and manipulation of text files. Text editors are useful in many situations where word processors or certain markup programs may not be suitable: when creating program source files, command procedures, when manually manipulating HTML or XML source files, or when the resulting file will be processed by a program, rather than viewed by a person.

Word processing programs include special formatting instructions, macros, and other items in their document files that are not compatible with the purposes listed above. Further, word processing programs often perform unwanted text formatting even when creating files in text-only mode.

OpenVMS comes with several general-purpose text editors and various other specialized editors and text processors. EDT and EVE are the most popular of the editors that can be used via the terminal interface. For GUI users, there are three main text editors: the GUI version of EVE, the CDE text editor, and DECwindows notepad.

This chapter describes the EDT text editor, a powerful, but uncomplicated, editor well suited to many tasks.

Many experienced users of OpenVMS prefer the EVE (TPU) text editor, often for its extensive macro capabilities and its ability to be customized. Because space constraints do not permit a discussion of both EVE and EDT, the more straightforward EDT is the editor introduced.