Text & Writing Encyclopedia
A reference library of typography, Unicode, readability, and digital-text terms — each entry written in depth, with history, examples, and related terms. We're expanding it continuously.
The universal character encoding standard that makes fancy fonts, emoji, and multi-language text possible.
The dominant variable-width encoding for Unicode — how almost all web text is stored and transmitted.
A 0–100 readability formula that estimates how easy English text is to read.
A naming convention where the first word is lowercase and subsequent words are capitalized — common in JavaScript.
A naming convention using underscores between lowercase words — common in Python and databases.
How JavaScript represents characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane, including most emoji.
We're actively writing full encyclopedia entries. In the meantime, explore our tools and blog guides, which already cover many of these terms in depth.