Text File types on computers
When you save a document you can set the file
name and where you want to store the file on your computer. You can, for example, create a new folder to
store the chapters of your book.
You can normally change the file format as well. The format of the file does not
affect the words themselves - just the way they are stored. The format allows
fancy layouts and fonts. These used to be simple but have now become a significant
overhead. An empty file can use up 10-20 kilobytes of storage before a single word is entered.
Each word processor has its own storage format.
Fortunately most software can import other file formats and convert them to a
format they can process. Be careful though, the words will survive, but the formatting might not.
Many text files use plain text (TXT), Rich Text Format
(RTF) as well as Microsoft Word (DOC) and now .DOCX. Word is the
de facto standard and comes in Mac and PC formats. Utilities exist to
import and export in Word format.
Remember to select 'All file types' when looking for
documents as they might have different file extensions, so will not show up if
you are only looking for a .DOC file-type.
The version of the software is also important. Someone sending version 4 of some software to a friend with
version 5 will be successful. But if the friend edits it in version 5 and
returns it, there will be problems. Mercifully these problems are less common
and you can always find a file converter on the Internet to solve the problem.
We advocate the use of RTF files, as they can be
read by every word processing package we know. Another reason for adopting
this neutral format is that they are smaller.
Microsoft Word documents can be saved as “RTF” (Rich Text Format). This is an ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text with minimal
formatting. Other word-processors allow you to Save_as plain text. (The Save_as
option creates another copy of your file, leaving the first unchanged while
a simple Save overwrites the original).
If you search on the internet you can find many utilities that will carry out
a basic conversion of one file type to another. Paid-for versions offer to
interpret the format and reproduce it in the converted file.
PDF is a format that is designed to be portable but not editable. Indeed,
lawyers often specify it because it cannot be changed. You can, of course, copy
the text, paste it into your word processor and then reformat it. But PDF is
deigned for finished documents, not work in progress.
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