Graphic files Extensions
Graphics have been an important part of computers since computers were invented and were able to print. Early graphics were generated using the standard ASCII character set and used to create simple graphs or rudimentary graphics. A number of different formats have become popular, and with the popularity of the Internet, the number of major graphic formats has greatly increased. For a listing of graphics formats, see Table below.
| Extension | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| .bmp | Bitmap | Used by MS Paint. |
| .eps | Adobe Encapsulated PostScript | Used by several major graphics applications. |
| .gif | Graphic Interchange Format | Originally owned by CompuServe, but now by AOL. It was designed to minimize download times. |
| .jpg, .jpeg | Joint Photographic Expert Group file format | A compression format that discards data that is thought to be invisible to the human eye. Discarding data to compress files is referred to as "lossy." |
| .pcd | Kodak Photo CD format | A special format of image to be displayed on devices that support Kodak Photo CD |
| .pcx | PC Paintbrush file | An early Windows graphic format. |
| Adobe's Portable Document Format | Readable by Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. | |
| .png | Portable Network Graphics | A fairly new and open (free to use) photo standard. It is planned as a replacement for .gif and .jpeg formats; it supports all the benefits of both formats. It uses a zip type algorithm for compression. |
| .tif, .tiff | Aldus Tagged-Image file format | This was used as a common interchange format between most graphics applications. It is very popular with photographic manipulators. It supports LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) compression format to reduce file sizes. LZW compression is "lossless" - it doesn't discard any data. |
Other file extensions
While some of the file extensions have been categorized in this tutorial, Table below has some other extensions that are worth noting.
| Extension | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| .asp, .aspx | Active Server Page files | Used by MS Paint. |
| .cda | CD Audio files | Used by MS Paint. |
| .css | Cascading Style Sheet files | Stores HTML style data. |
| .htm, html | HyperText Markup Language files | Store data that will be displayed on Web sites. Web servers use the HyperText Transfer Protocol (http) to send the information to your Web browser. .html is gaining popularity for displaying information locally as well. Many vendors send help files in this format so that they can be used on both their Web sites and as offline files. |
| .tmp | Temporary file | A short term storage file. |
| .txt | Text file | ASCII text files that are readable on every operating system. |
| .wav | Windows Audio files | Audio files designed specifically for use with Windows. |
In this tutorial:
- Managing Files and Directories
- Identifying File-Naming Conventions
- Long and short filenames
- Creating file associations
- Understanding file extensions
- Compression utilities Extensions
- Graphic files Extensions
- Understanding File Attributes
- The basic attributes
- Windows 2000 and Windows XP extended attributes
- Encrypt
- Index
- Setting basic attributes