tXt

TXT is a plain text file format used to store unformatted text. Files with the .txt extension contain sequences of characters without formatting instructions, making them readable by humans and widely supported by editors, programming languages, and tools.

TXT files typically use ASCII or Unicode encodings, most commonly UTF-8 on modern systems. There is no standardized metadata, and line endings vary: LF on Unix-like systems, CRLF on Windows, and historically CR on classic Mac systems. This can require normalization when transferring between platforms.

Origins trace back to early computing when data was stored as simple character streams. The TXT format became a default for configuration files, source code, notes, and logs due to its simplicity and portability. It is widely used for data interchange when markup or binary formats are unnecessary.

Advantages include human readability, minimal overhead, and broad tool support. Limitations include the lack of structure or styling, absence of metadata, and potential ambiguities in newline interpretation or encoding. Large TXT files can be unwieldy to edit or search compared to structured formats.

See also: JSON, XML, CSV, YAML, Markdown, RTF, log files.