This is a list of file formats organized by type, seen on computers. Filename extensions are usually noted in parenthesis if they differ from the format name or abbreviation.
Audio
- Lossless
- Lossy
- Music formats
- MID (standard MIDI file; most often just notes and controls but occasionally also sample dumps)
- NSF (bytecode program to play NES music)
- MOD (Soundtracker and Protracker sample and melody modules)
- S3M (ScreamTracker 3 module, with a few more effects and a dedicated volume column)
- XM (FastTracker module, adding instrument envelopes)
- IT (Impulse Tracker module, adding compressed samples, note-release actions, and more effects including a resonant filter)
- MT2 (MadTracker 2 module. It could be resumed as being XM and IT combined with more features like track effects and automation.)
- MNG (BGM for the Creatures game series, starting from Creatures 2; a free editor and player (http://mngedit.sourceforge.net/) is available)
- STF StudioFactory project file. It contains all necessary patches, samples, tracks and settings to play the file.
- SYN SynFactory project file. It contains all necessary patches, samples, tracks and settings to play the file.
CAD
EDA
Document
These files store formatted text.
Spreadsheet
- 123 - Lotus 1-2-3
- AWS - Ability Spreadsheet
- CLF - ThinkFree Calc
- CVS - Comma Separated Values
- gnumeric - Linux gnumeric spreadsheet, gziped XML file
- Quattro
- SXC - StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet
- TAB - tab delimited columns
- XLS - Microsoft Excel worksheets
- WK? - Lotus 1-2-3
- WKS - Microsoft Works
Database
- DBF - DBase III/IV
- MDB - Microsoft Database (Access)
- NSF - Lotus Notes database
- NTF - Lotus Notes database design template
- SQL - bundled SQL queries
- WDB - Microsoft Works Database
Presentation
- PPS - Microsoft PowerPoint Show
- PPT - Microsoft PowerPoint
- PRZ - Lotus Freelance Graphics
- SHF - ThinkFree Show
Webpage
- Static
- HTML (.html, .htm) - HyperText Markup Language
- XHTML
- XML (.xml)
- Dynamically generated
- ASP - Microsoft Active Server Page
- ASPX - Microsoft Active Server Page.NET
- ADP - AOLserver Dynamic Page
- CFM - ColdFusion
- CGI
- Perl (.pl)
- PHP (.php, .php?, .phtml) - ? is version number
Script
- Shell script (.sh)
- Python (.py)
- Perl (.pl)
- PHP (.php, .php?) - ? is version number
- Ruby (.rb)
- Javascript (.js)
- Visual Basic Script (.vbs)
Graphics
- Main article: graphics file formats.
Raster graphics
These files store images as a group of pixels.
- ART - America Online proprietary format.
- BMP
- CUT - Dr. Halo image file
- DjVu - DjVu for scanned documents
- GIF - CompuServe's Graphics Interchange Format
- MNG - Multiple Network Graphics, the animated version of PNG.
- MSP - a file format used by old versions of Microsoft Paint. Replaced with BMP in Microsoft Windows 3.0.
- IFF (.iff, .ilbm, .lbm) - ILBM
- JNG - a single-frame MNG using JPEG compression and possibly an alpha channel.
- JPEG, JFIF (.jpg or .jpeg) - a lossy image format widely used to display photographic images.
- JP2 - JPEG2000
- LBM - Deluxe Paint image file
- MAX - ScanSoft PaperPort document
- MIFF - ImageMagick's native file format
- PBM - Portable BitMap
- PCX - an lossless format used by ZSoft's PC Paint, popular at one time on DOS systems.
- PGM - Portable Graymap
- PICT - Apple Macintosh PICT image
- PNG - Portable Network Graphic (lossless, recommended for display and edition of graphic images)
- PPM - Portable Pixmap
- PSD - Adobe Photoshop Drawing
- PSP - Jasc Paint Shop Pro image
- QFX - QuickLink Fax image
- RLE - a run-length encoded image.
- SGI - Silicon Graphics image
- TGA - Truevision Targa image file
- TIFF (.tif or .tiff) Tagged Image File Format (usually lossless, but many variants exist, including lossy ones.)
- XBM - X Window System Bitmap
- XPM - X Window System Pixmap
Vector graphics
Vector graphics use geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and polygons to represent images.
Signal data formats (non-audio)
- ACQ (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg/#ACQ) - AcqKnowledge File Format for Windows/PC from Biopac
- BKR (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg/bkr.html) - The EEG data format developed at the University of Technology Graz
- BDF (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg/#BDF) - BioSemo data format - similar to EDF but 24bit
- CFWB (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg/#ADICHT) - Chart Data File Format from ADInstruments
- EDF (http://www.hsr.nl/edf/) - European data format
- FEF - File Exchange Format for Vital signs
- GDF - General data formats for biomedical signals
- MFER - Medical waveform Format Encoding Rules
- SCP-ECG - Standard Communication Protocol for Computer assisted electrocardiography
- SIGIF (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/%7Eschloegl/matlab/eeg/#SIGIF)- SIGnal Interchange Format
- and many others [1] (http://www.dpmi.tugraz.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg)
Object code
Function Library
- DLL - Microsoft Dynamic Link Libraries
- .so - Shared object (Unix/Linux)
- .dylib - Mac dynamic library
object extensions
- VBX - visual basic extensions
- OCX - object control extensions
Page description language
- configurations, metadata
- CSS
- XSLT (.xslt) - used to define how XML is displayed
Scientific data formats (Data Exchange)
- CDF Common data format [2] (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdf/cdf_home.html)
- FITS Flexible Image Transport format - Standard data format for astronomy [3] (http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/)
- NetCDF Network common data format [4] (http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/netcdf/docs.html)
- HDF Hirarchical Data Format [5] (http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/)
- SDXF (Structured Data Exchange Format)
Tabulated data
Archive and compressed
Video
- AAF (mostly intended to hold edit decisions and rendering information, but can also contain compressed media essence)
- Animated GIF (simple animation; often avoided because of patent problems)
- ASF (ASF is a shell, which enables any form of compression to be used; MPEG-4 is common. Video in ASF-containers is also called Windows Media Video (WMV))
- AVI (AVI is a shell, which enables any form of compression to be used; MPEG-1 and a variant of MPEG-4 are common)
- Macromedia Flash (.swf for viewing, .fla for producing) (complex vector-based animation with sound and interactivity)
- Matroska (*.mkv) (Matroska is a container format, which enables any video format such as MPEG-4 or XviD to be used along with other content such as subtitles and detailed meta information)
- MNG (mainly simple animation containing PNG and JPEG objects, often somewhat more complex than animated GIF)
- MPEG
- MXF
- Tarkin (Ogg project, all Tarkin files are Ogg files)
- Theora (Ogg project, all Theora files are Ogg files)
- OGM (OGM is a container format created so that Ogg Vorbis could be used for the audio of a video as this could not be done with AVI)
- MOV (QuickTime, a container format, which enables any form of compression to be used; Sorenson codec is the most common)
- RealMedia
- Xvid
GIS
- DEM (USGS) (US Geo Survey terrestrial elevation data)
External link
- Wotsit's format (http://www.wotsit.org/) - A file format reference for programmers
- icdatamaster.com (http://www.icdatamaster.com) - A collection of file extensions and their descriptions (also has German and French versions)
- FILExt (http://www.filext.com/) - another collection, with mime-types
- cryer.co.uk (http://www.cryer.co.uk/filetypes/) - another collection
- whatis?com (http://whatis.techtarget.com/fileFormatA/) - another collection
- [6] (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/~schloegl/matlab/eeg/) - list of scientific/signal data formats
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