File Formats

See also: File Format | Audio Formats | Data | Information

This list is nowhere near exhaustive. Not even close. We’re not even going to try. Seriously. No, seriously!

Some other helpful references include:

• Fileinfo.net – Searchable database of file extensions.
• File Extensions Reference – File extensions listed alphabetically.
• Wotsit Format – Contains file format information on hundreds of different file types.

Contents

• 1 List of wiki topics which speak about a file format:
  • 1.1 Graphics Formats:
  • 1.2 Audio Formats:
  • 1.3 Text Formats:
  • 1.4 Office Formats:
  • 1.5 Internet Formats:
  • 1.6 Compression/Archival Formats:
  • 1.7 Source code Formats:
  • 1.8 Executable Formats:
  • 1.9 Multimedia
  • 1.10 File Authentication
  • 1.11 Unsorted

List of wiki topics which speak about a file format:

Graphics Formats:

• GIF – Compressed graphics files – best for icons and low-color drawings
• JPEG or JPG – Compressed graphics files – best for photos
• PNG – Compressed graphics files – Free successor to GIF files with no license associated, not compatable with older browsers
• TIFF or TIF – Tagged Image File Format
• PSD – Adobe Photoshop images
• BMP – Uncompressed bitmap images files
• XCF – The GIMP image files
• ICO – Windows icon files
• SVG – Uses XML to describe vector graphics

Audio Formats:

• WAV – Sampled wave forms – Windows format
• AIFF – Sampled wave forms – Sun Microsystems and Apple format
• OGG – Ogg Media (usually Ogg Vorbis compressed audio format)
• MP3 – Compressed Audio format
• WMA, WMV – Microsoft’s compressed Audio and Video format
• AAC – Dolby’s Compressed Audio format
• SHN, Shorten file format for lossless audio compression
• RA, RM, RAM – Real Media stand-alone and streaming audio and video formats

Text Formats:

• RTF – Rich Text File format
• TXT – Plain text (usually)

Office Formats:

• PDF – Adobe Portable Document Format
• DOC – Microsoft Word documents
• PPT – Microsoft Power Point presentations
• XLS – Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
• WPD – Corel Word Perfect documents
• SDW, SXW – Open Office documents

Internet Formats:

• HTM/HTML – HyperText Markup Language
• PHP – HyperText Pre-Processing (a deliberately weird acronymn)
• ASP – Windows Active Server Pages
• JSP – Java Server Pages
• CSS – Cascading Style Sheets
• VRML – Virtual Reality Markup Language
• CGI – Generic web-based scripts
• JS – JavaScript

Compression/Archival Formats:

• ZIP – PKWare archives
• RAR – RAR archives
• ARJ – ARJ archives
• TAR – UNIX tape archives
• 7Z – 7zip archives
• BZ2 – bzip2 compressed files
• GZ – gzip compressed files
• Z – UNIX zip compressed files
• CAB – Windows install archives
• ACE – ACE archives
• LZH – LZH archives
• LHA – LHA archives

Source code Formats:

• C – C source code
• H – C header file
• CPP – C++ source code
• JAVA – Java source code
• BAS – BASIC source code
• PAS – Pascal source code

Executable Formats:

• EXE – Generic MS-DOS, OS/2 and Windows executables
• SCR – Windows screen savers
• COM – MS-DOS conventional/low memory executables
• BAT – MS-DOS shell scripts or batch files
• CMD – Windows NT shell scripts
• SH – Bourne or Korn shell scripts for UNIX
• PL – Perl scripts

Multimedia

• RIFF

File Authentication

• MD5, SHA1, RSA, DSA

Unsorted

• INF – Windows driver information files
• O – UNIX compiled object files
• OBJ – Windows compiled object files
• CLASS – Java compiled object files
• JAR – Packed Java compiled objects

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