File formats :

A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free and may be either unpublished or open.
In simple terms, a file format describes the way information is organized In a computer file. File formats apply to documents, images, audio files ,video files and research data sets eg. .doc or.pdf

Image file formats:

TIFF is, in principle, a very flexible format that can be lossless or lossy. The details of the image storage algorithm are included as part of the file. In practice, TIFF is used almost exclusively as a lossless image storage format that uses no compression at all. Most graphics programs that use TIFF do not compression. Consequently, file sizes are quite big. (Sometimes a lossless compression algorithm called LZW is used, but it is not universally supported.) PNG is also a lossless storage format. However, in contrast with common TIFF usage, it looks for patterns in the image that it can use to compress file size. The compression is exactly reversible, so the image is recovered exactly. GIF creates a table of up to 256 colors from a pool of 16 million. If the image has fewer than 256 colors, GIF can render the image exactly. When the image contains many colors, software that creates the GIF uses any of several algorithms to approximate the colors in the image with the limited palette of 256 colors available. Better algorithms search the image to find an optimum set of 256 colors. Sometimes GIF uses the nearest color to represent each pixel, and sometimes it uses "error diffusion" to adjust the color of nearby pixels to correct for the error in each pixel. GIF achieves compression in two ways. First, it reduces the number of colors of color-rich images, thereby reducing the number of bits needed per pixel, as just described. Second, it replaces commonly occurring patterns (especially large

areas of uniform color) with a short abbreviation: instead of storing "white, white, white, white, white," it stores "5 white." Thus, GIF is "lossless" only for images with 256 colors or less. For a rich, true color image, GIF may "lose" 99.998% of the colors. JPG is optimized for photographs and similar continuous tone images that contain many, many colors. It can achieve astounding compression ratios even while maintaining very high image quality. GIF compression is unkind to such images. JPG works by analyzing images and discarding kinds of information that the eye is least likely to notice. It stores information as 24 bit color. Important: the degree of compression of JPG is adjustable. At moderate compression levels of photographic images, it is very difficult for the eye to discern any difference from the original, even at extreme magnification. Compression factors of more than 20 are often quite acceptable. Better graphics programs, such as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop, allow you to view the image quality and file size as a function of compression level, so that you can conveniently choose the balance between quality and file size. RAW is an image output option available on some digital cameras. Though lossless, it is a factor of three of four smaller than TIFF files of the same image. The disadvantage is that there is a different RAW format for each manufacturer, and so you may have to use the manufacturer's software to view the images. (Some graphics applications can read some manufacturer's RAW formats.) BMP is an uncompressed proprietary format invented by Microsoft. There is really no reason to ever use this format. PSD, PSP, etc. are proprietary formats used by graphics programs. Photoshop's files have the PSD extension, while Paint Shop Pro files use PSP. These are the preferred working formats as you edit images in the software, because only the proprietary formats retain all the editing power of the programs. These packages use layers, for example, to build complex images, and layer information may be lost in the nonproprietary formats such as TIFF and JPG. However, be sure to save your end result as a standard TIFF or JPG, or you may not be able to view it in a few years when your software has changed.

Audio file formats:

AIF Format- AIF is an audio format that was developed by Apple Computer. Most recent browsers, including Microsoft IE and Netscape Navigator, will play an aif file using the browser's built-in sound player. AIF files have one of these extensions: .aif, .aiff, .aifc AU Format- AU is one of the most common audio formats used on the Web. It was created by Sun Microsystems and is sometimes referred to as "audio/basic" format. Most browsers support the au format with their internal sound players. An au-formatted file has this extension: .au EA Format EA format was created by Geo and named after its Emblaze Audio creation products. It compresses audio files to a fraction of their original size and uses a Java applet to play back the file. This is the first audio format that was created specifically for Web-based audio. Any browser that supports Java will play an .ea file without requiring additional plug-ins. EA files have this extension: .ea MIDI Format- MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI is typically used to play music. MIDI files contain a set of instruction that your computer sends to a sound card, synthesizer, or other device. MIDI files contain information about how to play the sound, rather than recording an actual rendition of the sound. They contain information about musical notes and which instruments play those notes. The quality of MIDI sound on the Web depends on the quality of the MIDI interpreter in the computer's sound card. For example, MIDI files sound very nice on WebTV because the WebTV MIDI interpreter does a high-quality job translating and "displaying" the sound. MIDI files have one of these extensions: .midi, .mid MP3 Format- The MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for downloading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality. It is recommended for music storage. It is not that good for voice storage. Mp3 files have the extension: .mp3.

WAV Format- WAV is Microsoft's audio format of choice. Since Windows 3.1, WAV has been the native format for sound within the Windows environment. Needless to say, this makes it one of the most common sound formats on the Web. Most browsers support the .wav format with their internal sound players. A .wav-formatted file has this extension: .wav

Video file formats

ASF,WMV (Advanced Streaming Format) (Windows Media Video) Can be streamed across the Internet and viewed before entire file has been downloaded when using a Windows Media server. Requires Windows Media Player be installed. Typically placed on an internet streaming server. AVI(Audio Video Interleave) Can be viewed with standard Windows Players such as Windows Media Player. Uncompressed yields a high quality video but uses a lot of storage space. If downloading from the Internet, the entire file must be downloaded before being played. Typically stored on local hard disk or CDROM or made available as download from web server. MOV(Apple Quicktime Movie) Requires Apples Quicktime Movie Player Depending on Compression chosen can provide a very high quality video clip, but better quality uses more storage space. Can be streamed across the Internet and viewed before entire file has been downloaded if using a Quicktime streaming server.

 Can be placed both on an internet streaming server, or local storage such as hard disk or CDROM. MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group) Can provide VHS quality movies or better Mpeg1 is equal to VHS. Mpeg2 is better than VHS and used for DVD Mpeg4 is best quality Requires an MPEG player to view

If downloading from the Internet, the entire file must be downloaded before being played because files sizes are very large. Typically MPEG2 is used to make DVD movies Can be placed on any storage media large enough to hold the file, but at current time the internet speed will not support streaming MPEG files. Any MPEG files found on the Web will have to be downloaded to the local drive and played using an MPEG player. RM(Real Media) Can be streamed across the Internet and viewed before entire file has been downloaded when using a Real Networks Streaming server. Has very high compression, but at a cost to quality. Requires RealPlayer to view content. gsm - designed for telephony use in Europe, gsm is a very practical format for telephone quality voice. It makes a good compromise between file size and quality. We recommend this format for voice. Note that wav files can also be encoded with the gsm codec. See here for a sample gsm encoded wav file. Sample .gsm file.

 dct - A variable codec format designed for dictation. It has dictation header information and can be encrypted (often required by medical confidentiality laws). See here for a list of codecs supported in dct files. The standard dct player is the Express Scribe Transcription Player. flac - a lossless compression codec. You can think of lossless compression as like zip but for audio. If you compress a PCM file to flac and then restore it again it will be a perfect copy of the original. (All the other codecs discussed here are lossy which means a small part of the quality is lost). The cost of this losslessness is that the compression ratio is not good. But we recommend flac for archiving PCM files where quality is important (eg. broadcast or music use). Sample .flac file.

au - the standard audio file format used by Sun, Unix and Java. The audio in au files can be PCM or compressed with the ulaw, alaw or G729 codes. Sample .au file. aif - the standard audio file format used by Apple. It is like a wav file for the Mac. Sample .aif file.

vox - the vox format most commonly uses the Dialogic ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) codec. Similar to other ADPCM formats, it compresses to 4-bits. Vox format files are similar to wave files except that the vox files contain no information about the file itself so the codec sample rate and number of channels must first be specified in order to play a vox file. Vox a very old file type and is pretty poor. We do not recommend it for anything except for supporting legacy systems. Sample .vox file. raw - a raw file can contain audio in any codec but is usually used with PCM audio data. It is rarely used except for technical tests. Sample .raw file.

Document file formats

Ascll
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme originally based on the English alphabet that encodes 128 specified characters - the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and a blank space - into the 7-bit binary integers. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text. Most modern character-encoding schemes are based on ASCII, though they support many additional characters. AmigaGuide AmigaGuide is a hypertext document file format designed for the Amiga, files are stored in ASCII so it is possible to read and edit a file without the need for special software. Since Workbench 2.1 an Amiga Guide system for O.S. inline help files and reading manuals with sort of hypertext formatting elements was launched in AmigaOS and based on a viewer called simply "AmigaGuide" and it has been included as standard feature on the Amiga system. Users with earlier versions of Workbench could view the files by downloading the program and library AmigaGuide 34 distributed with public domain collections of floppy disks (for example on Fred Fish collection) or it could be downloaded directly from Aminet Amiga Official Repository on the web.[1] Starting from AmigaOS 3.0 the AmigaGuide tool was replaced with more the complete and flexible MultiView. Doc (.doc) In computing, DOC or doc (an abbreviation of 'document') is a filename extension for word processing documents, most commonly in the Microsoft Word Binary File Format. Historically, the extension was used for documentation in plain text, particularly of programs or computer hardware on a wide range of operating systems. During the 1980s, WordPerfect used DOC as the extension of their proprietary format. Later, in the 1990s, Microsoft chose to use the DOC extension for their proprietary Microsoft Word format. The original uses for the extension have largely disappeared from the PC world.

DocBook-(.dbk) DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software but it can be used for any other sort of documentation. As a semantic language, DocBook enables its users to create document content in a presentation-neutral form that captures the logical structure of the content; that content can then be published in a variety of formats, including HTML, XHTML, EPUB, PDF, man pages, Web help and HTML Help, without requiring users to make any changes to the source. HTML (.html) Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the main markup language for creating web pages and other information that can be displayed in a web browser. The purpose of a web browser is to read HTML documents and compose them into visible or audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses the tags to interpret the content of the page. HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. It can embed scripts written in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML web pages. Open XML(.oxps) Open XML Paper Specification (also referred to as OpenXPS) is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format. Microsoft developed it as the XML Paper Specification (XPS). It is an XML-based (more precisely XAML-based) specification, based on a new print path (print processing data representation and data flow) and a colormanaged vector-based document format that supports device independence and resolution independence. An XPS file is, in fact, a Unicoded ZIP archive using the Open Packaging Conventions, containing the files which make up the document. These include an

XML markup file for each page, text, embedded fonts, raster images, 2D vector graphics, as well as the digital rights management information. The contents of an XPS file can be examined simply by opening it in an application which supports ZIP files. PDF (.PDF) Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format used to represent documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it. In 1991, Adobe Systems co-founder John Warnock outlined a system called "Camelot" that evolved into PDF. Text in PDF is represented by text elements in page content streams. A text element specifies that characters should be drawn at certain positions. The characters are specified using the encoding of a selected font resource. XLS(.xls) XLS is a file extension for a spreadsheet file format created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft excel .XLS stands for eXcel spreadsheet. Microsoft Excel files use a proprietary format for storing Microsoft excel document. This file format is known as the Binary Interchange File Format(BIFF). XLS files can also be opened by the Microsoft Excel Viewer and Open Office. Office Open XML (.docx) Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML or OpenXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentation and word processing document.

Power Point formats

.ppt A slide show that you can open in PowerPoint 97 to Office PowerPoint 2003. PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx) The PPTX file extension is given to Microsoft Power Point files that are created in PowerPoint versions 2007 and later. Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software that allows users to create slide shows containing pictures, text, music and video. The PowerPoint program is included in the Microsoft Office Suite. Earlier versions of Microsoft PowerPoint create files using the .ppt extension. The .pptx extension is being assigned by later versions of PowerPoint because these versions of the software use the Open XML format. This format allows PowerPoint files to be compressed into smaller sizes, making it easier to distribute the files online and taking up less drive space on a user's computer. .pptm Files with the .pptm extension are most commonly associated with the Microsoft PowerPoint presentation software. The PPTM files feature macro-enabled presentations that have been created by the software. The PPTM files contain a collection of presentation slides containing images, text, movies, sound effects and embedded macros. These files are similar to PPTX files, but PPTX files do not contain embedded macros. The PPTM file format is based on the Open XML document format introduced by Microsoft in 2007. .potx Files that contain the .potx file extension are used by the PowerPoint presentation software application. PowerPoint is a program that allows users to create dynamic presentations and The POTX files that are used by the PowerPoint software application contain PowerPoint templates. These templates allow a user to save default file settings in the PowerPoint application, allowing the user to re-

apply the same layout settings across multiple PowerPoint presentation files without having to create each file from scratch. Companies often use the POTX file format to create standard master slides which contain the company's header, footer and logo The POTX file format is based on the Open XML format, which was only included in versions 2007 and later of the PowerPoint product. .potm A file with the POTM file extension is a Microsoft PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Design Template file. A template that includes pre-approved macros that you can add to a template to be used in a presentation. OpenDocument Presentation (.odp) Use to save PowerPoint 2010 files so they can be opened in presentation applications that use the Open Document Presentation format, such as Google Docs and OpenOffice.org Impress. You can also open presentations in the .odp format in PowerPoint 2010. Some information might be lost when saving and opening .odp files. Outline/RTF (.rtf) A presentation outline as a text-only document tha provides smaller file sizes and the ability to share macro-free files with others who may not have the same version of PowerPoint or the operating system that you have. Any text in the notes pane is not saved with this file format. Windows Media Video (wmv) A presentation that is saved as a video. PowerPoint 2010 presentations can be saved at High Quality (1024 x 768, 30 frames per second); Medium Quality (640 x 480, 24 frames per sec); and Low Quality (320 X 240, 15 frames per second). The WMV file format plays on many media players, such as Windows Media Player.

http://www.umpi.edu/files/faculty-staff/itss/workshops/CommonAudioFiles.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_file_format http://www.marcellusschools.org/tfiles/folder967/Video%20Formats.pdf http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/powerpoint-help/file-formats-that-are-supported-in-powerpoint2010-HP010338214.aspx