Each PC user is constantly confronted with various formats of text files, but hardly thinks about how rich the history of these formats and programs is, giving a person the opportunity to read books, work with text and create all the necessary documentation directly on the computer.
The history of text files is not much younger than the personal computers themselves - their masterpieces were already written by the first programmers in the first analogues of the modern notepad. So what are the formats of text files and programs for working with them? First you need to understand why text files are needed, what are the differences between them and what they have in common. Unites absolutely all text formats; their main task is to save text information. They differ in the possibilities of processing and formatting text, as well as access to information stored in files in terms of compatibility with other programs.
The simplest text format is traditionally the TXT format. It is the most modest in capabilities and the oldest text format. Due to its simplicity (TXT capabilities are limited to typing and breaking it down into paragraphs), this format is often used by a huge number of applications and programs on a variety of platforms.
With the spread of personal computers and increased sales, Microsoft is creating another popular format called Rich Text Format (or simply RTF). It is a text that is marked up with the help of certain "control words", which allow not only to produce, but also to save complex formatting elements and insert formulas, tables, figures, footers and footnotes into the text.
However, RTF is quite inferior in capabilities to the DOC format, also created by Microsoft specifically for a software package called Microsoft Office. Created over fifteen years ago, DOC includes a huge number of opportunities for formatting and processing text, creating, editing and placing images, charts, tables and other elements. It should be noted that these functions will work most correctly only in MS Word. This is primarily due to the fact that Microsoft does not have current specifications for the DOC format and does not allow its competitors and independent developers to take full advantage of the capabilities of this format. It is this fact that is one of the main reasons that, in addition to the DOC format, other text file formats are now widely used.
The main difference between the DOC format and the RTF and TXT text formats is its binary, due to which it becomes unreadable in such simple text editors as Wordpad, Lexicon, Atlantis. Moreover, in some cases, you can observe the incompatibility of DOC files created in various versions of MS Word.
Text file formats can be opened and edited in a huge number of programs. In addition to the previously mentioned MS Word, the most common ones are StarOffice, manufactured by Sun Microsystems, Corel's WordPerfect and the free OpenOffice.org package.
With the spread of electronic reading devices, other text file formats, such as FB2 and LRF, are gaining popularity.
In order to be able to use different text formats on different platforms, a large number of programs called converters have been created. Text file converters allow you to save the source text from one format to another and use it later on on various devices and platforms.
Converters are used not only to save text from one format to another, but also to create files that, unlike their sources, can be used on devices that are not able to "read" the original files. For example, some e-books that do not support popular text file formats can easily recognize LRF or FB2 formats obtained from source files using converter programs.