A DEL file contains plain text in the ASCII format with row and column delimiters. It is used similarly to a .CSV or .TSV file and may be created by a variety of applications to output or exchange data. Some common uses of the DEL format include exchanging data between applications or analyzing data with a spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel.

DEL files store cell values, which consist of ASCII characters, that are organized into one or more rows separated by row delimiters (line breaks). And in each row, every cell value is separated by a column delimiter (commas). Default row and column delimiters can be overridden by the user if other characters are preferred. Here is an example of how data is stored, by default, in a DEL file: "Johnson, Brad",50.50,200 "Davis, Joe",60.50,280 "Barnes,Isaak",48.75,193 Since DEL files are stored in plain text, you can open them with any text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad or Apple TextEdit. You can also open the files with spreadsheet programs, such as Microsoft Excel and Apache Calc (included with OpenOffice).