I completely rewrote default signs as a standalone mod with many new features! It's now possible to view the full text of a sign within a custom sized and colored formspec combined with an advanced markup language specifically tailored for Minetest formspecs with simple-to-use tags for layout and formatting (i.e. color, header, border, rows and columns, etc.) and builtin word-wrapping within all cells.
Old signs will be read-only, but remain viewable. They must be updated to access the new editing functionality. Punch the sign once, and a confirmation message will be displayed: "This sign is now updated. Right-click it holding sneak to open the message editor."
There are two ways of using the editor. Either you can compose your message without any markup, for a traditional, plain-text sign. Or you can take advantage of the layout and formatting tags to give your sign the sophistication and punch it needs to stand out from the crowd!
Please refer to the forum topic for more details about the Bedrock Markup Language Mod. https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=23855
Best of all, due to nature of the markup language, a context-sensitive algorithm is able to produce infotext (stripped of all tags, of course) that is still very true to the original. Also a downsampler option is provided in the message editor, so that you can select which algorithm to use for generating the infotext.