What is an ASC file?
An ASC file includes more than just text information. ASC files are an excellent choice for messaging encryption and secure communication across the digital landscape.
Created by the American National Standards Institute in 1963, the American National Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was published as a standard based on encoding for telegraph data.
Today, ASCII code provides a standardized form for importing plain text into different applications using the .ASC file extension. ASC files support basic characters like letters, numbers, and punctuation. Each character conforms to a character in the ASCII code. Binary codes are contained in the header and throughout the content that describes the file structure. Because ASC character coding is universally applied throughout the computing industry, any application that supports the ASCII format can import ASC files.
How to use an ASC file.
The .ASC file extension is used for multiple methods, but the most common is for encryption and secure communication. Program source code, scripts, macros, and databases that need to remain secure are often stored using ASC files.
Additionally, encryption programs such as Pretty Good Privacy and Open PGP can provide an extra layer of security to ASC files by signing, encrypting, and decrypting communication files. Messages can include images, digital signatures, and other binary data encoded as text.
How to create an ASC file.
You can send any communication securely using an ASC file. For instance, you can create and attach an ASC file to an email or other media system for extra security.
To create an ASC file:
- Export your document using the export dialog box and select the .ASC file extension.
- Choose from Default, International, or Unicode as a character set for the exported file.
- Select the number of characters you want to fit per line in the ASCII file. Please note that the default is 75 characters.
What program opens an ASC file?
If you need to know how to open ASC file contents or extract ASC files, various third-party plugins are available for Windows and Mac operating systems. If the file associations are set up correctly, opening the file will also open its intended application. However, an application may need to be selected manually.
ASC files can also be opened using any text editor, such as Notepad. Microsoft Word and Excel can also open text-based files such as a TXT file or CSV file, though they’ll require adjustments to the layout.
For example: Microsoft Excel supports ASCII files, so an ASC file can be loaded in Excel by selecting the ASC file and loading it as a text file. The import process varies according to Microsoft Excel versions but generally involves the following steps:
- Click File > Open and browse to the location of the file.
- In the Open dialog box drop-down list, select Text Files.
- Click the file you want to open.
- In the Import Text Wizard, select the Delimited option. Select the appropriate delimiter for your file.
- Change the Column Data Format to text.
If you want to preserve the formatting of your Excel file, use the Excel to PDF Acrobat tool to easily convert the file to a PDF.
Convert and share ASC files with Adobe Acrobat.
When the contents of your ASC file need to be converted to another file type for easier sharing, formatting, printing, or archiving purposes, consider using tools such as Adobe Acrobat to convert the revised file to PDF, which provides security with access control encryption and password protection. Acrobat also supports TXT to PDF and Word to PDF conversion functionality, and any PDF can be edited quickly and easily using the PDF editor. Discover all that you can do with Acrobat today.
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