What is the difference between proprietary and non-proprietary encoding?
Proprietary software products, such as mainstream word-processing applications, use encoding to allow the creators of documents to give instructions on the formatting of each part of the document. Typically such instructions are issued by clicking a button or selecting from a drop-down menu. When such instructions have been given the visual presentation of the document can be observed on screen but the underlying encoding is normally invisible to the user, although many products allow users the option of viewing at least some of the codes if they wish to do so. Each supplier of proprietary software uses their own set of codes, and in many cases these are unique to a particular software application. When documents are created using proprietary software, proprietary codes are embedded in the documents and it is almost certain that some will be embedded at a deeper level than users can view. Proprietary encoding causes no difficulties while documents are maintained where they can be viewe
