Learn More About File Formats

Each of the blocks below includes file format information along with external links for you to explore to learn more.

 

Additional resources include:

Vector Formats

PDF

Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) is the defacto standard for capturing, reviewing, archiving and exchanging pages.

PostScript

PostScript was the first successful page language and is still very active behind the scenes of printers and operating systems.

EPS

Encapsulated PostScript is used for the storage and exchange of high-quality vector graphics and composite pages.

SVG

SVG is the Web standard for storing and publishing scalable vector graphics. It’s also supported in many applications.

DXF

DXF is the industry-standard CAD exchange format developed by Autodesk to share AutoCAD data with other programs.

WMF

Windows Metafile is the display and clipboard format of Windows and the native graphics format for MS Office.

EMF

Enhanced Metafile is an enhanced 32-bit metafile used primarily as a graphics language for printing.

CGM

Computer Graphics Metafile is used for storage, exchange and publishing of technical graphics.

MIF

MIF is a vector output format and the native graphics format of FrameMaker from Adobe.

HPGL

Hewlett Packard Graphics Language is a plotter language and an exchange format.

IMAGE Formats

PNG

Portable Network Graphics are used primarily on the web for text, line art and transparent images

JPEG

The JPEG format is a lossy format ideal for images produced through digital photography.

GIF

GIF is a 256-color raster format. Still used for animated images, its given way to PNG for static images.

BMP

BMP is a bitmap image format defined for device independence by Microsoft for use with their API.

TIFF

TIFF was historically used with scanning, fax and archive applications. Today it supports high color-depth.

TEXT Formats

UTF-8

UTF-8 represents any character in Unicode. It is used on the Web and in email.

ISO-8859

ISO-8859 was introduced to accommodate the special characters required for Latin alphabets.

Unicode

Unicode is a character set that defines a unique number for every character in the world.