technoguy

A text file (or plain text file) is a computer file which contains only ordinary textual characters with essentially no formatting. The term 'text file' is typically used in contrast with the term 'binary file', even though any file is fundamentally a sequence of arbitrary bits, and many computer components (for example, all hard disk circuitry and most system software) make no distinction between file types. However, a large percentage of application programs can understand and use text files in some way, but few programs can typically understand and use the contents of any particular binary file. Hence the distinction can be useful to computer users.