File Formats

 The need for characteristics and uses of generic file formats

A generic file format can be opened in suitable software on most platforms (most
types of computer). Questions will require you to open and edit data that is
supplied to you; these files will always be in generic file formats.

Some file types used by Microsoft Office, such as 

Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx), 

Word documents (.docx), and 

Access databases (.accdb) 

are not generic. 

It is not always possible to open these packages on other platforms.

Generic file formats

◘ Common generic text files include:

» Comma separated values: these files have a .csv file extension. This file type
takes data in the form of tables (that could be used with a spreadsheet or
database) and saves it in text format, separating data items with commas.

» Text: these files have a .txt file extension. A text file is not formatted and
can be opened in any word processor.

» Rich text format: these files have a .rtf file extension. This is a text file type
that saves some of the formatting within the text.

◘ Common generic image files include:

» Graphics interchange format: these files have a .gif file extension. This
format stores still or moving images and is an efficient method of storing
images using a smaller file size, particularly where there are large areas of
solid colour. It is widely used in web pages.

» Joint photographic expert group: these files have a .jpg (or sometimes

a .jpeg) file extension. This format stores still images, but does not store

moving images. It is an efficient method of storing images using a smaller file

size and is widely used in web pages.

» Portable document format: these files have a .pdf file extension. This

is a document which has been converted into an image format. It allows

documents to be seen as an image so they can be read on most computers.

The pages look just like they would when they are printed, but can contain

clickable links and buttons, form fields, video, and audio. In PDF format you

can protect a document to stop others from editing it.

» Portable network graphics: these files have a .png file extension. It is a file

format that compresses graphics (image) files without any loss of image

quality. It was created to replace graphics interchange format and is now the

most used lossless image compression format on the internet.

◘ Common generic video files include:

» Moving pictures experts group layer 4: these files have a .mp4 file

extension. It is not a single file format, but is a multimedia container which

is used for storing video files, still images, audio files, subtitles, etc. This

container is often used to transfer video files on the internet.

◘ Common generic audio files include:

» Moving pictures experts group layer 3: these files have a .mp3 file

extension. It is a compressed file format used for storing audio files. This

format cannot store still or moving images. The file sizes are relatively small,

but with near-CD quality, which makes it suitable for use on the internet.

◘ Common generic files used for website authoring include:

» Cascading Style Sheets: these files have a .css file extension. This is a style

sheet which is saved in cascading style sheet format and is attached to one or

more web pages (often written in HTML) to define the pages’ colour scheme,

fonts, etc.

» Hypertext Markup Language: these files have a .htm (or sometimes a .html)

file extension. This is a text-based language used to create content that a web

browser can display as a web page.

◘ Common generic compressed files include:

» Roshal archive: these files have a .rar file extension. This is a container

which can hold almost any file type in a compressed format. It is used to

reduce the number of bytes needed to save a file, either to save storage space

or to reduce transmission time. It was developed for Windows by a Russian

software engineer Eugene Roshal and takes its acronym from Roshal ARchive.

» Zip: these files have a .zip file extension. This is a container which can hold

almost any file type in a compressed format. It is used to reduce the number

of bytes needed to save a file, either to save storage space or to reduce

transmission time.