Actually, there is no difference. But since text files are often
interpreted as such, it is wise to limit the contents to the proper
subset. For example:
>dir tt1.txt
02/06/2006 07:05p 10 tt1.txt
1 File(s) 10 bytes
The file tt1.txt contains 10 bytes, but we only see 7 if we type it:
>type tt1.txt
abcdefg
because "type" expects the file to be text and not binary and
interprets some of the contents instead of printing them. A dump
reveals why we only see 7:
DUMP.EXE version 8-MAR-91
Block # 0 0
0 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 0D 0A 1A FF FF FF FF FF FF abcdefg...
Bytes 8, 9 & 10