list/find all regular files in all subdirectories excluding binary files

file /usr/bin/file, for example, does not include the word "binary" in its output on my system. If file -i is available, it does include the word "binary". Without -i, it may be more reliable to test for the presence of the word "text".

find -type f -exec sh -c "file {} | grep text >/dev/null" \; -print

or

find -type f -exec sh -c "file {} | grep text >/dev/null" \; -ls

Using -i:

find -type f -exec sh -c "file -i {} | grep -v binary >/dev/null" \; -print

Using file is only going to be an approximation since it's using heuristics to determine the type of file and there's no hard-and-fast definition of what constitutes a "binary" file. Is an empty file "binary"? file says it is. Also, there are lots of (normally uncommon) ways to trigger false positive IDs by file.

Another way would be to exclude all files which have execute permission set for either user, group or others:

find . -type f ! -perm /u=x,g=x,o=x

(If binary equals execute permissions...)