Plaintext

Plaintext is a message written in a language humans can understand. This includes binary files, a script, or programming codes that are comprehensible without needing to use any form of decryption key or device.

In cryptography, plaintext refers to the messages, documents, or files intended to be encrypted. While plaintext is the input to an algorithm, ciphertext is the output. The process of converting plaintext to ciphertext is known as encryption, and the process of converting ciphertext to plaintext is known as decryption. Encryption ensures the message (which was initially written in plaintext) can be read only by the intended recipient.