The following information is a work in progress, however, I had a couple of requests about it, so am putting it up early. I will replace it when I can. Info is correct, just a little ragged. Text files can be read on any computer.
Binary files are specific to a certain computer platform or computer program.
Mac text files can be split into Resource and Data files-a Macintosh exclusive. And it is not uncommon for Mac text documents to have only a data fork. Binary files attached to most e-mail also get corrupted. Many programs on the Mac can decode for you automatically. Use v4.0, not v5.0.