Concept of Plain text and formatted text.

To put it simply, plain text is any text that isn't formatted. It does not take any special formatting, such as varying fonts, font sizes, bold font, or italics. It also only contains standard characters, which are those found in the default set of characters that an application can display. It can also refer to a document that only contains these unformatted characters.

Plain text, Plain-text, or Plaintext is any text, text file, or document containing only text. Unlike a rich-text document, a plain text file cannot have bold text, fonts, larger font sizes, or any other special text formatting. The picture is a visual example of plain text vs. formatted text.

Most associate plain text files with the file extension .txt on Microsoft Windows computers, however, can be any non-formatted file. To view a plaintext file, a text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad is used. However, all text editors including Microsoft WordPad and Word can also be used to view plaintext files because they have no special formatting.

Plain text files are often made by the most basic text file format, which takes on the ".txt" extension. These files are often created and edited by Notepad, the text editor found on every Windows device, or by another text editor. However, text files can be opened by virtually any document or text editor, including more powerful applications such as Notepad++, Wordpad, Microsoft Office, or OpenOffice.

Another place where you can find plain text is input forms in websites and apps. Many social media websites, such as Twitter and Instagram, only let you post captions and tweets as plain text, although there are some exceptions, such as hashtags and emoji. Therefore, you cannot add any additional formatting to these elements. They are automatically formatted according to the standards of the website or app. Older email clients also often have plain text modes, allowing you to send messages in plain text.

The Benefits of Using Plain Text Files

Many people opt to use plain text rather than rich text for most of their editing. This practice is especially common among programmers and developers, who code in languages constructed with plain text and are used to that environment.

Plain text is simple, easy to read, and can be read and sent to anyone. It also has none of the device or software compatibility issues that come with varying fonts. Those are just some of the reasons why many people use text files over more powerful applications like Word. There is even a large group of people who use plain text for all text editing, from creating grocery lists to typing out full-length novels.

Another important use of plain text files is that they form most of the underlying infrastructure behind files and web pages. For example, ".ini" files used to keep configurations for Windows applications are often stored in a plain text format. This allows you to edit your settings by simply opening them up in Notepad.

Formatted Text

Formatted text is text displayed in a special, specified style. In computer applications, formatting data may be associated with text data to create formatted text. How formatted text is created and displayed is dependent on the operating system and application software used on the computer.

Text formatting data may be qualitative (e.g., font family), or quantitative (e.g., font size, or color). It may also indicate a style of emphasis (e.g., boldface, or italics), or a style of notation (e.g., strikethrough, or superscript).

Purpose

The purpose of formatted text is to enhance the presentation of information. For example, in the previous paragraph, the italicized words are each followed by examples. At a glance, the reader can ascertain that there are four special words in the paragraph. The goal is to help the reader to obtain, understand, and retain the information.

Copying formatted text

When you copy formatted text to your clipboard, formatting information may or may not be copied with the text data.

For example, if you select text in one application that is boldface, you can copy it to your clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C. The formatting data is also copied to the clipboard, saying "this text is bold." When you paste it (Ctrl+V) into a program that also supports formatted text, that formatting data is included, and the pasted text should appear bold.

However, if you paste the text into an application that does not support bold text, such as Microsoft Notepad, the pasted text is unformatted. Notepad ignores the formatting information, because it doesn't understand it. However, the plain text is pasted correctly.

The same is true if you paste the formatted text into a text field, such as the address bar in your web browser. Formatting data is stripped, but the plain text is pasted.

Unformatted text

Unformatted text is any text that is not associated with any formatting information. It is plain text, containing only printable characters, white space, and line breaks.