Extension of a text file: types and basic aspects of determining the affiliation of programs

With text files (documents) we come across almost every day. However, in this issue, you should not confuse the extension of a text file and the text data format, these are different things. Let's try to decide what files of this type represent, and what they are.

Extension of a text file: what is it?

To begin with, as a rule, most files of this type have an extension in the form of three letters after the separator (dot). The easiest and most common type is files with the extension .txt, which are opened on the same Windows systems using the standard Notepad.

However, despite the generally accepted rules, file text file extensions may contain not three letters, but more (their number may be up to twelve, but not more), for example, .djvu e-book files. In addition, the expansion may include numbers.

What gives us to consider the classification of a text file (document) in terms of their identification? And the fact that one look allows you to instantly solve an important question: what extension have text files, such is the program that is associated with them for opening or editing. Here, in many cases, it is almost always possible to determine the initial application in which such a file was created.

However, do not forget that today you can meet a fairly large number of files with the same extensions, but created in other applications or mapped to different programs. It would seem that a regular file with the extension .doc (.docx) initially corresponds to the text editor Microsoft Word. But you can open it or save it in this form in another word processor, even on "apple" computers. This can also include, and so to speak, a mixed type - files of the .pdf format, containing not only text, but also graphics. But even Word documents can contain inserted images.

This is what serves as an indicator that the extension of a text file indicates the universality of the format itself, which is the most "readable" regardless, even from the operating system used. The same goes for text editors of any type.

Types of file extension: text

In general, for today we know such a huge number of text formats and their extensions, that, probably, almost no expert will take to calculate their total number.

Yes, of course, the universality of such documents is not in doubt, especially if they use the simplest ASCII encoding. But sometimes the problem can be that not every encoding is supported by a specific system or program. That's why on the screen instead of the usual letters appears a set of characters.

As for the varieties of text files, they all can not be enumerated. The most common are: .txt, .doc, .tex, .text, .pdf, .log, .apt, .ttf, .err, .sub, .djvu, .odt, .rtf and many others. This list can be continued indefinitely.

What is most interesting, many files of this type in the system have different roles. For example, in addition to the usual .sub subtitle file, a plain text .txt document can respond to them when opening the video, and many formats are interchangeable in this regard.

Note, even executable files can have text as content. The simplest example is the .bat file, created in the usual "Notepad" and containing the text in the form of a set of commands. At startup, commands are executed, and the "Open with ..." menu is used for editing, if initially another process is not associated with this process.

A similar situation is observed with documents using markup or programming languages, for example, .html, .htm, .xml, etc. files. Even web pages can be opened in many editors initially as text files containing third-party elements.

Modifying Text File Extensions

As for changing the extension, sometimes it can be changed, for example, .txt to .doc and vice versa. The Word editor will open any type. The same applies to the .txt - .bat pair when opened in Notepad. But in other cases it is better not to do such manipulations, it simply will not lead to anything, and another application can not open the renamed file. The format change will have to be done with the help of special converter programs.

Instead of an afterword

As you can see, the extension of a text file can have many variations, depending on which program the document was created in. But, as in other cases, it is almost always possible to determine the initially associated application from the extension itself, in the extreme case, open any other program that supports working with this type of data, even if the original application on the computer is missing. And as it is already clear, text files, in fact, are the most widespread and universal in the computer world, regardless of the software packages and operating systems used.