Text Files

MS Word uses some byte patterns to indicate formatting and font information. Notepad is not written to deal with this information and will not work correctly with a file that contains it. This is somewhat like a book written in English and a book written in Latin. The same book shelf could hold both books and both books use the same characters printed on paper. But some readers can only process the book written in English.

A text file is a file that contains bytes that represent characters, and a limited number of other bytes that represent ends of lines, tabs, and a few other control characters. A text file contains bytes that represent:

• characters 'A' through 'Z'
• characters 'a' through 'z'
• characters '0' through '9'
• the space character
• punctuation and symbols like . , : ; " + - $ (and others)
• a few control characters that show end of lines, tabs and some others.

Text files are the easiest type of files for a program to deal with. Mostly, the next few chapters deal with text files.