Standard file formats

This page contains some file formats and data interchange formats which are either conformant to ISO, which are very widely used throughout the world wide web, or which were created by industry consortiums and/or are open to public use. This page tries to avoid as much as possible the specification of proprietary file formats. There is a brief technical overview so that it can be used on a glance what file format should be used in designing new software.

Name Standard Category Base
SIDF: System-independent data format
ISO 14863, ECMA-208
file system image

CDFS: CD-ROM file systen
ISO 9660
file system image

Intel hex

code

Tektronix Hex

code

Motorola Srecord

code

CLASS: Java class file
The Java virtual machine specification
code

MIDI: Standard MIDI files (SMF)

audio

AIFC: Audio interchange file format compressed
Link to specification
audio
IFF
AIFF: Audio interchange file format
Link to specification
audio
IFF
FLAC: Free lossless audio codec
Link to specification
audio

MP3: MPEG audio stream

audio

SPEEX Audio compression codec
The Speex Codec Manual
audio

Vorbis Audio compression codec
Ogg logical bitstream framing
audio

WAV
Link to specification
audio
RIFF
JNG: JPEG Network graphics
Link to specification
image
PNG
JPEG2000: File stream
ISO 15444
image

JPEG JFIF

image

EXIF: Echangeable file format
Link to specification
image
JPEG SPIFF
PNG: Portable network graphics
ISO 15948
image
NONE
TIFF: Tagged interchange file format
ISO 12639
image

CGM: Computer graphics metafile
ISO 8632
image

DXF: Drawing exchange file format
Link to specification
3d model

VRML: Virtual Reality modeling language
ISO 14772
3d model
SGML
X3D: Extensible 3D
ISO 19776
3d model
XML
BZ2: Bzip2
Link to specification
archive or directory

GZ: Gzip
IETF RFC 1952
archive or directory

TAR: Tape archive
Link to specification
archive or directory
NONE
TAR: Tape archive
POSIX
archive or directory
NONE
ZIP (version 2)
Link to specification
archive or directory
NONE
HTML: Hypertext markup language
ISO 15445 (subset of HTML 4.01), W3C HTML 4.01
text or document
SGML
PDF: Portable document format
ISO 15930 (subset of PDF 1.4 - PDF/X), Adobe
text or document
Postscript
SGML:Standard Generalized Markup Language
ISO 8879
text or document
NONE
Opentype font
Link to specification
font

AVI: Audio video interleaved
Link to specification
video or animatiom
RIFF
MOV: Quicktime
Link to specification
video or animatiom

MPEG

video or animatiom

OGG Transport stream
IETF RFC 3533
video or animatiom

RMF: Realmedia stream file

video or animatiom

SWF: Shockwave Flash
Link to specification
video or animatiom

MNG: Multiple image network graphics
Link to specification
video or animatiom
PNG
vCard
Link to specification
personal information management

iCalendar
IETF RFC 2445
personal information management

vCalendar
Link to specification
personal information management

IFF: Interchange file format
Electronic Arts IFF 85
generic container

RIFF: Resource interchange file format

generic container

XML: Extensible markup language
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0
generic container
SGML
OLE: Structured compound file

generic container
NONE
Portable application description file
Portable application description
metadata
XML
Extensible metadata platform sidecar file
XMP Specification
metadata
XML


Automatically generated on 2005-03-29


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