The Difference Between HTML, Rich Text and Plain Text
HTML, rich text and plain text are three different text file formats with different uses. Although they are all ways of stylizing text, their functions are completely different. Each of them has its own purpose and use.
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Plain Text
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Plain text is text that has no formatting like bold, italics or different font sizes. The only formatting that's done with plain text are line breaks and spacing between words and/or paragraphs.
HTML
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HTML, or Hyper-Text Markup Language, is a specific programming language created for designing Web pages. HTML uses special tags to format text and must be viewed in a Web browser.
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Rich Text
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Rich text format (.rtf file) is styled text saved in a file format that's compatible with a wide variety of word processors. Rich text files retain attributes like bold and italics even if they're opened in a word processing program that's different from the one in which the file was created.
Email
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Most email programs give you the choice between sending your emails in HTML or plain text format. HTML format is good if you have stylized text in your email. However, some email programs are not capable of reading the HTML code correctly.
Conversions
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Neither rich text nor plain text can be converted to HTML without HTML tags being added. HTML, however, can be copied and pasted into another program and converted to either format. When rich text is converted to plain text, all style attributes are removed automatically. HTML can be converted to plain text format then back to HTML simply by changing the document's file extension.
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References
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