#PLAIN TEXT DOCUMENT ENCODING SERIES#
Each setting is binary so the options can be compactly written as a series of bits. It’s very restrictive and only has a limited set of options: vertical/horizontal (is the shape’s long axis vertical? true/false), large/small (is the shape large? true/false), filled/open (is the shape filled? true/false), ellipse/rectangle (is the shape elliptical? true/false).
Suppose I have an application (called, say, FooBar) that allows me to draw either a rectangle or an ellipse. If a file is identified as having a particular format but its content doesn’t follow the rules for that format, then the declared format is incorrect or invalid (which is what triggers an “invalid format” error if you try to open it). The file format determines how the binary content should be interpreted. In other words, all files have binary content. So each file contains a sequence of bits and the file size is measured in bytes. Binary in this context means one of two states, so you can view the internals of a computer as a series of tiny switches that can either be on or off. This isn’t intended to be a lecture on hardware, so I’m going to simplify things somewhat, but digital devices (such as laptops, tablets and smartphones) essentially treat everything as binary data. So what actually is the difference between a binary file and a text file, and what causes weird symbols to appear and “missing character” warnings? This can be very confusing to new users without a computer science background who might ask, “what’s the difference between a binary file and a text file, and what does file encoding mean?” It can also confuse people with a computer science background who might blithely inform you that, naturally, a binary file is a file that has binary content and a text file is a file that contains plain text.
#PLAIN TEXT DOCUMENT ENCODING PDF#
The source code for your document is written in a text file and you need a text editor to create and modify it, but you need to make sure the file (or input) encoding is correct otherwise you can end up with error messages, warnings and strange characters in your PDF file. The TeX distribution comes with a mixture of binary files and text files.