In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text and to "binary files" in which some portions must be interpreted as binary objects (encoded integers, real numbers, images, etc.).
The encoding has traditionally been either ASCII, one of its many derivatives such as ISO/IEC 646 etc., or sometimes EBCDIC. Unicode-based encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16 are gradually replacing the older ASCII derivatives limited to 7 or 8 bit codes.
Read more about Plain Text: Plain Text and Rich Text, Plain Text, The Unicode Definition, Usage
Famous quotes containing the words plain and/or text:
“Give me a mystery—just a plain and simple one—a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little, barefoot mystery: give me a mystery—just one!”
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b. 1933)
“What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one’s meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)