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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 January 2017) [foldoc]:
binary file
binaries
binary data
Any file format for digital data that does
not consist of a sequence of printable characters (text).
The term is often used for executable machine code.
All digital data, including characters, is actually binary
data (unless it uses some (rare) system with more than two
discrete levels) but the distinction between binary and text
is well established. On modern operating systems a text
file is simply a binary file that happens to contain only
printable characters, but some older systems distinguish the
two file types, requiring programs to handle them differently.
A common class of binary files is programs in {machine
language} ("executable files") ready to load into memory and
execute. Binary files may also be used to store data output
by a program, and intended to be read by that or another
program but not by humans. Binary files are more efficient
for this purpose because the data (e.g. numerical data) does
not need to be converted between the binary form used by the
CPU and a printable (ASCII) representation. The
disadvantage is that it is usually necessary to write special
purpose programs to manipulate such files since most general
purpose utilities operate on text files. There is also a
problem sharing binary numerical data between processors with
different endianness.
Some communications protocols handle only text files,
e.g. most electronic mail systems before MIME became
widespread in about 1995. The FTP utility must be put into
"binary" mode in order to copy a binary file since in its
default "ascii" mode translates between the different
newline characters used on the sending and receiving
computers.
Confusingly, some word processor files, and rich text
files, are actually binary files because they contain
non-printable characters and require special programs to view,
edit and print them.
(2005-02-21)