People seem to have very different ideas about what constitutes a minimal writing tool. For some, the important thing is that the tool excludes other distractio

People seem to have very different ideas about what constitutes a minimal writing tool. For some, the important thing is that the tool excludes other distractions: perhaps it runs full screen, or on dedicated hardware. For me, it is important that the tool gets out of the way: it must not prevent me using other resources for reference; it must start up fast; it must have very little in the way of ribbons and buttons; I need to be able to compare documents on the same screen; and it must not drop non-text in to the text I am working on (so no on-screen markup). I need bullet points, italics, and red text. I need to be able to print in 18pt. Documents must be read/write viable for 30 years. I have a preference for RTF as a format. Those are simple requirements, but I would be surprised if they match any other person directly. This is the problem with the idea of a minimal editor - people have conflicting requirements. Just consider "red text" for instance: a simple requirement, but it rules out anything based on markdown. I suspect that the answer has to lie in using subset functionality of existing sw. Personally I use TextEdit, but not with any features which would cause it to save to RTFD.