An ASCII Plain Text Resume can be developed using Notepad, or even MS Word using the 'Save As Plain Text' option, remembering not to include any special formatting or special characters.
Some other tips for developing an ASCII Plain Text resume:
- Left justification should be used; to center text, use spaces
- Avoid using bullets when preparing ASCII formats, however use asterisks or hyphens (dashes)
- Ensure that you use a fixed width font, like 12 point Courier New
- To line up your text, do not use the tabs but rather, use spaces
- Do not exceed 80 characters per line length
- Special software is not needed; ASCII formats can be developed in Notepad; or in MS Word, after removing all of the formatting and saving the file as a Plain Text file.
Q: Can you please explain the difference between the various Internet file formats: ASCII Plain Text Resume (.txt), ASCII Rich Text Resume (.rtf) and ASCII Hypertext Resume (.html) and what they are used for.
A: These are the following ways you can use the above Internet file formats:
(a)ASCII Text Resume (.txt) - can be cut and pasted directly into the body of the email, or into electronic forms on the Internet. (Note: this format is not for printing/presentation and therefore does not have fancy headings, bullets, special fonts, etc).
(b)ASCII Rich Text Resume (.rtf) - can be cut and pasted into electronic forms on the Internet, and due to its compatibility can be viewed by various popular word processors i.e. Corel WordPerfect and MS Word. (Note: this format retains page formatting, bullets, headings etc. However, do not cut and paste this format into the body of an email, as rich-text is not commonly supported by e-mail editors, and will therefore be unreadable).
(c)ASCII Hypertext Resume (.html) - Hypertext Markup Language - this is a plain-text file format of your resume, which is uploaded and stored on a web server and viewed by a web browser (either MS Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator).
