MIME transmits information across the Internet.
MIME or Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a communications protocol, allows the transmission of data across the Internet. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority or IANA globally coordinates the different forms of data types. The IANA lists 52 media text sub-types registered as of November 2010. There are four common textual data types used. The complete list of text sub-types is located on the IANA website.
Plain Text
Plain text uses standard ASCII characters and numbers. No formatting is done in plain text allowing it to take up less space. Most log files are generally stored as plain text.
Rich Text
The rich text type allows formatting within its data. Words and symbols can be made bold, italic and underlined. Font size, type and color along with page formatting are available with rich text. Most word processing software uses the rich text format.
HTML Text
Hyper-text markup language is the language of web pages. It is a fairly simple code-based language that uses syntax and tags to create a web page.
XML Text
XML is a "metalanguage" used to create markup languages for specific applications. XML, or Extensible Markup Language, defines documents with a standard format that any XML compatible application can read.
