File:Text-txt.svg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
text file
Sign in to saveAlso known as .txt, plain text, plain text file, textfile, TXT file, plain text document, Text file format, Text/plain
kind of computer file containing plain text
Key facts
- Filename extension
- .txt
- Internet media type
- text/plain
- Type code
- TEXT
- Uniform type identifier uti
- public.plain-text
- Uti conformation
- public.text
- Magic number
- None
- Type of format
- Document file format , Generic container format
- Free format
- yes
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- ASCII full.svg
Show 6 more facts
- Commons category
- Plain text
- equivalent class
- schema.org/TextDigitalDocument
- media type
- text/plain
- exact match
- rs.tdwg.org/format/values/m019
- Stack Exchange tag
- stackoverflow.com/tags/text-files
- P13411
- Eurymorion
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Article
A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system.
In operating systems such as CP/M, where the operating system does not keep track of the file size in bytes, the end of a text file is denoted by placing one or more special characters, known as an end-of-file (EOF) marker, as padding after the last line in a text file. In modern operating systems such as DOS, Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, text files do not contain any special EOF character, because file systems on those operating systems keep track of the file size in bytes.