science

Hidden text

Hidden text is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hidden text rather than just read about it. In short: Hidden text is computer text that is displayed in such a way as to be invisible or unreadable. Hidden text is most commonly achieved by setting the font colour to the same colour as the background, rendering the text invisible unless the user highlights it.

Key takeaways

Hidden text belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hidden text to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hidden text from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hidden text is computer text that is displayed in such a way as to be invisible or unreadable. Hidden text is most commonly achieved by setting the font colour to the same colour as the background, rendering the text invisible unless the user highlights it. Hidden text can serve several purposes. Often, websites use it to disguise spoilers for readers who do not wish to read that text. Hidden text can also be used to hide data from users who are less Internet-experienced or who are not familiar with a particular website. Another meaning may refer to hidden text to small messages at the bottom of advertisements that are permitted by some law to state a particular liability or requirement in text (also known as fine print). An example of this practice is to display an FTP password in hidden text to reduce the number of users who are able to access downloads and thereby save bandwidth. Parody sites (such as Uncyclopedia) occasionally use the technique as a joke about censorship, with the "censored" text displayed black-on-black in an obvious manner akin to a theatrical stage whisper. It is also used by websites as a spamdexing technique to fill a page with keywords that a search engine will recognize but are not visible to a visitor. However, Google has taken steps to prevent this by parsing the color of text as it indexes it and checking to see if it is transparent, and may penalize pages and give them lower rankings. Conversely, Project Honey Pot uses links intended only to be followed by spambots; the links point to honeypots which detect e-mail address harvesting. A link using rel="nofollow" (to hide it from legitimate search engine spiders) and hidden text (to remove it for human visitors) would remain visible to malicious 'bots. Compare with metadata, which is usually also hidden, but is used for different purposes. Hidden characters are characters that are required for computer text to render properly but which are not a part of the content, so they are hidden. This includes characters such as those used to add a new line of text or to add space between words, commonly referred to as "white space characters".

See also Comment (computer programming) White fonting

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hidden text

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hidden text claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hidden text before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hidden text ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hidden text

In research: Hidden text appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hidden text in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hidden text is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Internet terminology, World Wide Web stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hidden text outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hidden text in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hidden text means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hidden text out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hidden text in simple terms?

Why does Hidden text matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hidden text?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hidden text.