File format: What is it and what are these standards for document identification?

On many occasions, we have to submit documentation via telematics and we doubt the file format that we have to use for it. It is very important to always choose the right one and, therefore, you should know what exists and what type of file they are oriented to.

File formats actually belong to certain standards. Computers work processing these formats in order to preserve the information. In general, if the user wants to know the format (to know more about its particularities) he does not have to do more than look at the extension of the file and this will tell him a lot about what the file in question contains.

That is why you will understand the logical and necessary to know the main types of file format, what they are and what they are for these standards to identify documents. We invite you to continue reading so that you can learn more about them and that this information will be useful in your day to day.

What is a file format and what are these standards for?

A file format , as its name implies, is a way to organize the files that compose it (that is, give them form) , which does not It is visible and does not imply any type of change for the user.

The type of file format that we will choose depends on what we are going to use for and the requirements of the content and its particularities.

Therefore, we have to take into account several factors:

• File quality . Most multimedia formats have to use compression methods to avoid space problems. This causes you to lose some quality and fidelity of the decompressed data related to the aspect of the file originally, you have to choose if you prefer to sacrifice it to gain weight or if you would like to keep a balanced file .
• Compatibility . Each software manufacturer creates its own file format according to it so that it can be processed and content fully compatible with its products possible . There may be certain limitations > either when viewing as in the print, playback, modification, etc.
• Format features options to use. They depend on color, background, animation, vocal details … This section is important, especially with regard to multimedia files, since depending on the format they have, they are treated in a another and we must check which one would interest us the most if we are going to play on the web, if we are going to burn it to a CD, if we will store it in an external memory, etc.

File extension; How to identify each format with them?

The first thing we have to highlight is that when we talk about file format we are not referring to the extension of it. In fact, we confuse them and use them as synonyms when they are not.

Both concepts are related, since knowing the letters that indicate the extension we can probably know what type of file we are reviewing and what are many of its characteristics. But there are file formats that have different extensions and we can choose one or the other . This means that, we repeat, they are not the same.

The file extension is the letters that appear after the period at the end of the name of this. It usually gives us data about it and tells us the type of file we are going to deal with.

Next, we indicate the best known extensions for each file format. Of course, we need to remember that there are dozens and dozens of them of all types (you can learn more about the topic and more in depth in this specific post about file extensions ).

Graphic files

For graphic files we have two general extensions that are those that reign within the market and some others that are used in more particular cases:

• .gif . It is the most used file format on the Internet. Its compression is at a moderate level , so the files occupy more than if we mount them in other formats, but they don’t lose almost quality in the image. It is not indicated for photographs that have high color resolution. It is the best format for images of type text and lines by drawings . They allow to integrate transparent areas and animated graphics .
• .jpg . It is the most used format for photographic images and also the one that best compression is able to provide. In fact, it is the user who decides the degree of compression that he wants to achieve, although that clashes, of course, with the quality of the file. It does not allow the option of transparencies or animated graphics.
• .tif . It is used for images whose final destination is printing on paper and scanning . Both its weight and its quality are very high .
• .png . Raster image format used by most office applications and ideal for logos for saved without background and for using a limited color palette .
• .bmp Lossless raster format (very heavy) used, initially, for Windows desktop background images (bitmap).
• Other known but much lower use (or specific use) are .svg, .ai, .pic, .wmf, .eps…

Text files

For this type of document it is important to know the need for external contributions to shape what has been written and highlight everything that interests us. The more you add or the greater format you want to give to that writing, the more you will have to consider when choosing the type of format to use and, with it, the extension it will have.

Check out the following extensions:

• .doc . This is the type of file used by Microsoft Word, the text creation and editing software of the Microsoft office suite. It is the most used by everyone and can be read by most word processors. This is precisely due to what we mentioned at the beginning about compatibility.
• .pdf . This is the file format used by Adobe. It offers the possibility of formatting text and graphics . It is the most used on the Internet, because does not allow you to modify the internal content of the documents and, with it, it has become a standard for viewing content , widely used for View information on various computers.
• .txt . A plain text file . The WordPad program itself (with which these files are read) is installed as the root component of the Windows operating system. The most important counterpart is that does not allow text formatting . In fact, creating files called plain text means just that.
• .rtf . It is a format of rich text . It is compatible with Word, but less space than its default, .doc.
• .html . This is the text format in which the websites are created . In order to read it, it is necessary to have a browser like Internet Explorer, Opera or Netscape Navigator, to name a few.
• .nfo . It accompanies compressed files and is used to create small texts .
• Others are .odt, .wri, .epub, .log, .notebook, .dic or .docx .

Compressed or encoded files

In this type of files it is very important to know what each extension indicates to know what the program that we should use to open them would be because here it is true that there are more incompatibilities: p >

• .arc / .arj . These are compressed files that are virtually no longer used.
• .bin . We are talking about a file that contains programs encoded in binary .
• .exe . These are files that contain the program executables in Windows. When we double click on these files, Windows Explorer starts the program that contains and we can interact with its graphic part.
• .zip . It is the most commonly used compression format . The Winzip program is needed to be able to compress and decompress the files.
• .rar . This is another quite used compression format . To be able to compress and decompress the files it is necessary to have the Winrar program.

Video files

In the case of video formats, it is likely that we have some program that opens all the files, especially if we have installed codec packages that serve precisely that, but it is interesting to know the most characteristic of each of the extensions to know what we are going to find when we see a file or, on the contrary.

When we want to create a file and we seek to provide it with certain features that are of interest to us:

• .avi . This is the standard video format with which Windows works . It can be played with the Windows Media Player, a program that is installed within those found in the root of the system. It has a very high quality , according to its weight and works with all types of codecs.
• .mpeg . It is a video format that works using compression system and can be used on all platforms. It includes several standards, among which the MP4 stands out.
• .mov . It is the standard video format with which Apple works . To use it, you must download the QuickTime program from the Internet, available for free. It is very good for editing work and also for streaming and publication on the network for its high quality but not excessive weight . It includes own and exclusive codec of this format.
• Some others that you have also heard are .mkv, .asf, .QT, .webM, .flv, .RM and, of course, .DVD .

Audio files

Audio formats are practically all surrendered to the most revolutionary format for years, but still depend a lot on where they are going to play and in this lies the decision to use one or another format.

Look at these sound formats:

• .mp3 . This is the most revolutionary format known today for the Internet. The quality is quite good and the space it occupies is little . You need to have a player installed on your computer, but in Windows, for example, Windows Media Player is enough for us. It can also be played on portable devices.
• .wav . This is the sound format created by Microsoft. Encode with PCM to avoid loss of quality (its weight is huge), it is used to store original audio , even professional and allows work with different size of sampling in 8 or 16 bits.
• .aiff / .au . This is the sound format used by Apple equivalent to the previous one. Encodes in PCM, is of high quality, does not compress and has a double channel in stereo .
• .wma . A Microsoft alternative to .mp3 that is nothing more than a .wav that is compressed to different variables as needed.
• .ra . The format chosen by RealNetworks is the result. It needs to be reproduced with the Real Player program, which can be downloaded from its website on the Internet. It is used to retransmit on the Internet via packages and is adaptable to the user’s reception requirements .
• You will also find .ogg, .flac, .alac, .dsd, .midi, .cda, .aac, .ac3 …

Database files h3>

This may not be very important for a medium-level user, but for programmers it is a very important differentiation to carry out their work:

• .sql . It is the format used for databases that use Oracle. Allows the management of algebra and the use of relational calculations .
• .mdb or .accdb . This is the format used for the files that have been created with Access. These can be exported to Excel, but they require a somewhat laborious process to carry out. Includes entries, queries, forms .. .

Other files

This block will include different file formats that do not fit in the previous groups:

• .xls . These are formats of spreadsheets that have been made with Excel, although KOffice or Star Office among other office suites may also have been used. They work in cells and are intended for mathematical and logistic use .
• .csv . They are spreadsheet files that do not need to store the characters of the program with which they were made. In this way, the user can open the file with other programs, without being forced to do so with the one created.
• .ppt . Format where presentations that have been made with the Power Point program are stored . Today extensions of other programs that do not belong to the Microsoft Office suite but are identical in performance and, therefore, create the same type of documents. They are generally compatible with similar software and we can open and modify all of them in any of the slide shows.
• As you can imagine there are hundreds of them, like all those that are own of the system, of games (which are video files but special) , of Internet…

List of the best programs and tools to be able to read all existing formats

As we have said before, we can recognize the file types through the extension that they carry after their name. This, moreover, is an important point to know with which program we should open each one of them.

But there are a series of highly versatile software or tools that allow you to open a very interesting number of different file formats and these are what we should have on our computers to be able to open all the files we need without having to download programs for each new format with which we give.

Next, we show a list of them, including what we would highlight most of them and what can make you discard for one or the other:

• Free Opener . Program that opens more than 80 file formats , especially files with audiovisual features (image, audio and video).
• Free File Opener . Application that is capable of opening more than 200 formats without installing other applications. It is guaranteed to be a Microsoft partner , which gives the user greater security to open the files that are less used.
• FileSee . Program that serves as file viewer or disk explorer . It includes a column that allows access to the subfolders of the disk. It supports more than 100 formats of text, image, video, sound …
• Open Freely . Application that can open all kinds of formats . It allows you to visualize them and also obtain their main technical characteristics . Some documents can even be edited.
• Universal Viewer . This is a rather outdated file viewer but just as practical as it is rest. Open especially image formats , although it is very useful to open unknown files from which we want to decrypt the content.