I switched the file extension over to .md instead of .txt and the content in them is not getting converted to HTML tags. I am invoking the “Text:” with <?php echo $page->text() ?>.
All I see in the browser is one big chunk of unformatted text.
Change the above to
<?php echo $page->text()->kirbytext() ?>
or short:
<?php echo $page->text()->kt()?>
it has nothing to do with the file extension, but to invoke the parser, you need to call either the markdown() or the kirbytext() methods. Check out the docs for more information on field methods: http://getkirby.com/docs/cheatsheet#field-methods
Bingo! Thanks. I knew it was something stupid I was missing