| Extension | DOCX |
| Full Name | Microsoft Word Document |
| Type | Document |
| Mime Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Format | Binary |
The DOCX file format is the native file format used by Microsoft Word. It was created in the mid-2000s as a successor format to the older DOC file format. The switch from DOC to DOCX allowed for a fresh start, re-building the format from the ground up to be more flexible and easier to extend in the future.
A DOCX is actually a ZIP container file format, with the actual word document data stored within it in the form of many separate XML documents. This separation into individual XML documents means the relevant document components can be grouped together.
The use of the ZIP format as a container wrapper allows the DOCX files to remain small in size compared to the older DOC format. Along with Microsoft Word, there are many other Word processing applications that can open and work with documents in the DOCX format.
| Extension | TXT |
| Full Name | Plain Text File |
| Type | Document |
| Mime Type | text/plain |
| Format | Text |
A TXT file is a simple text file that contains only plain text characters; binary data cannot be stored in text files. Text files allow storage of simple text documents where rich text formatting features such as bold, italic, underline, etc. are not needed.
Initially, text files could only store characters residing in the ASCII character set; however, over the years, character encoding properties have been added to allow for non-ASCII characters to be represented using formats such as UTF8 and UTF16.
TXT files are supported by all major operating systems, with most platforms including built-in software allowing text files to be opened and edited without any additional software. Text files also form the basis for many other file formats, such as XML, CSV, and more.
