Comment by Tsukiko
11 years ago
Most of text is 2D. What is usually regarded as text is just a collection of simplified and arranged 2D symbols. What is usually regarded as a picture is collection of unarranged non-simplified 2D symbols. 1D text would be more like morse code.
I didn't meant as a visual reprentation. Text no matter how well formatted/displayed will only flow in one direction* (be it up-down/down-up and left-to-right/right-to-left). In a picture you have no such constraints. Thus a picture is harder to scan by humans and machines alike. It takes expert knowledge to tune out some of distractions of visual representation.
* Exception being texts that are deformed to instill a sense of confusion and to simply play with how text looks like. Or possibly some really obscure non-European writing system that writes non-linearly.