Machine-readable text where letters and punctuation are stored, but no additional information is saved. Sometimes called simple or unstructured text.

A text file containing only ASCII characters. Most word processors store text in files containing special codes for formatting. When these are e-mailed to users who do not have the same program the text may be garbled. The safest way to e-mail text is to send an ASCII text.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is the basis of character sets used in almost all present day computers. ASCII text(pronounced ask-ee text), can be read by every computer system, including Windows, DOS, Unix, Macintosh or any other. ASCII, can be created in such applications as Notepad or SimpleText. Unlike Word documents, ASCII documents cannot be formatted, not can they render foreign characters (such as French accented vowels).